ENGLISH    TRAITS 

BEING  VOLUME  V. 

OF 

EMERSON'S  COMPLETE  WORKS 


9 


ENGLISH   TRAITS 


BY 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 


Qciu  anti  Bitoufrt  Glutton 


BOSTON 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 
New  York:  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 

&rri 
1888 


Copyright,  1856  and  1876; 
BY  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

Copyright,  1883  and  1884, 
Bl  EDWARD  W.  EMERSON. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge  : 
Electrotype*  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Oo. 


41 

CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND 7 

II.  VOYAGE  TO  ENGLAND 28 

III.  LAND 37 

IV.  RACE 47 

V.  ABILITY 75 

VI.  MANNERS 101 

VII.  TRUTH 114 

VIII.  CHARACTER 124 

IX.  COCKAYNE 140 

X.  WEALTH 149 

XL  ARISTOCRACY 166 

XII.  UNIVERSITIES 191 

XIII.  RELIGION 205 

XIV.  LITERATURE 221 

XV.  THE  "  TIMES," 247 

XVI.  STONEHENGE 259 

XVII.  PERSONAL 276 

XVIII.  RESULT 283 

XIX.  SPEECH  AT  MANCHESTEB 292 


ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

FIRST   VISIT  TO   ENGLAND. 

I  HAVE  been  twice  in  England.  In  1833,  on 
my  return  from  a  short  tour  in  Sicily,  Italy  and 
France,  I  crossed  from  Boulogne  and  landed  in 
London  at  the  Tower  stairs.  It  was  a  dark  Sun- 
day morning ;  there  were  few  people  in  the  streets, 
and  I  remember  the  pleasure  of  that  first  walk  on 
English  ground,  with  my  companion,  an  American 
artist,  from  the  Tower  up  through  Cheapside  and 
the  Strand  to  a  house  in  Russell  Square,  whither 
we  had  been  recommended  to  good  chambers.  For 
the  first  time  for  many  months  we  were  forced  to 
check  the  saucy  habit  of  travellers'  criticism,  as  we 
could  no  longer  speak  aloud  in  the  streets  without 
being  understood.  The  shop-signs  spoke  our  lan- 
guage ;  our  country  names  were  on  the  door-plates, 
and  the  public  and  private  buildings  wore  a  more 
native  and  wonted  front. 

Like  most  young  men  at  that  time,  I  was  much 
indebted  to  the  men  of  Edinburgh  and  of  the  Edin- 


8  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

burgh  Review,  —  to  Jeffrey,  Mackintosh,  Hallam, 
and  to  Scott,  Playfair  and  De  Quincey;  and  my 
narrow  and  desultory  reading  had  inspired  the  wish 
to  see  the  faces  of  three  or  four  writers,  —  Cole- 
ridge, Wordsworth,  Landor,  De  Quincey,  and  the 
latest  and  strongest  contributor  to  the  critical  jour- 
nals, Carlyle ;  and  I  suppose  if  I  had  sifted  the 
reasons  that  led  me  to  Europe,  when  I  was  ill  and 
was  advised  to  travel,  it  was  mainly  the  attraction 
of  these  persons.  If  Goethe  had  been  still  living  I 
might  have  wandered  into  Germany  also.  Besides 
those  I  have  named  (for  Scott  was  dead),  there 
was  not  in  Britain  the  man  living  whom  I  cared  to 
behold,  unless  it  were  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
whom  I  afterwards  saw  at  Westminster  Abbey  at 
the  funeral  of  Wilberforce.  The  young  scholar  fan- 
cies it  happiness  enough  to  live  with  people  who 
can  give  an  inside  to  the  world ;  without  reflecting 
that  they  are  prisoners,  too,  of  their  own  thought, 
and  cannot  apply  themselves  to  yours.  The  condi- 
tions of  literary  success  are  almost  destructive  of 
the  best  social  power,  as  they  do  not  leave  that 
frolic  liberty  which  only  can  encounter  a  compan- 
ion on  the  best  terms.  It  is  probable  you  left  some 
obscure  comrade  at  a  tavern,  or  in  the  farms,  with 
right  mother-wit  and  equality  to  life,  when  you 
crossed  sea  and  land  to  play  bo-peep  with  celebrated 
scribes.  I  have,  however,  found  writers  superior 


FIRST  IHSIT  TO  ENGLAND.  9 

to  their  books,  and  I  cling  to  my  first  belief  that  a 
strong  head  will  dispose  fast  enough  of  these  im- 
pediments and  give  one  the  satisfaction  of  reality, 
the  sense  of  having  been  met,  and  a  larger  hori- 
zon. 

On  looking  over  the  diary  of  my  journey  in 
1833,  I  find  nothing  to  publish  in  my  memoranda 
of  visits  to  places.  But  I  have  copied  the  few  notes 
I  made  of  visits  to  persons,  as  they  respect  parties 
quite  too  good  and  too  transparent  to  the  whole 
world  to  make  it  needful  to  affect  any  prudery  of 
suppression  about  a  few  hints  of  those  bright  per- 
sonalities. 

At  Florence,  chief  among  artists  I  found  Hora- 
tio Greenough,  the  American  sculptor.  His  facg 
was  so  handsome  and  his  person  so  well  formed 
that  he  might  be  pardoned,  if,  as  was  alleged,  the 
face  of  his  Medora  and  the  figure  of  a  colossal 
Achilles  in  clay,  were  idealizations  of  his  own. 
Greenough  was  a  superior  man,  ardent  and  elo- 
quent, and  all  his  opinions  had  elevation  and 
magnanimity.  He  believed  that  the  Greeks  had 
wrought  in  schools  or  fraternities,  —  the  genius  of 
the  master  imparting  his  design  to  his  friends  and 
inflaming  them  with  it,  and  when  his  strength  was 
spent,  a  new  hand  with  equal  heat  continued  the 
work ;  and  so  by  relays,  until  it  was  finished  in 
every  part  with  equal  fire.  This  was  necessary  in 


10  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

so  refractory  a  material  as  stone ;  and  he  thought 
art  would  never  prosper  until  we  left  our  shy  jeal- 
ous ways  and  worked  in  society  as  they.  All  his 
thoughts  breathed  the  same  generosity.  He  was 
an  accurate  and  a  deep  man.  He  was  a  votary  of 
the  Greeks,  and  impatient  of  Gothic  art.  His  pa- 
per on  Architecture,  published  in  1843,  announced 
in  advance  the  leading  thoughts  of  Mr.  Ruskin  on 
the  morality  in  architecture,  notwithstanding  the 
antagonism  in  their  views  of  the  history  of  art.  I 
have  a  private  letter  from  him,  —  later,  but  re- 
specting the  same  period,  —  in  which  he  roughly 
sketches  his  own  theory.  "  Here  is  my  theory  of 
structure :  A  scientific  arrangement  of  spaces  and 
forms  to  functions  and  to  site ;  an  emphasis  of  fea- 
tures proportioned  to  their  gradated  importance  in 
function ;  color  and  ornament  to  be  decided  and  ar- 
ranged and  varied  by  strictly  organic  laws,  having 
a  distinct  reason  for  each  decision  ;  the  entire  and 
immediate  banishment  of  all  make-shift  and  make- 
believe." 

Greenough  brought  me,  through  a  common  friend, 
an  invitation  from  Mr.  Landor,  who  lived  at  San 
Domenica  di  Fiesole.  On  the  15th  May  I  dined 
with  Mr.  Landor.  I  found  him  noble  and  courte- 
ous, living  in  a  cloud  of  pictures  at  his  Villa  Ghe. 
rardesca,  a  fine  house  commanding  a  beautiful  land- 
scape. I  had  inferred  from  his  books,  or  magnified 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  11 

from  some  anecdotes,  an  impression  of  Achillean 
wrath,  —  an  untamable  petulance.  I  do  not  know 
whether  the  imputation  were  just  or  not,  but  cer- 
tainly on  this  May  day  his  courtesy  veiled  that 
haughty  mind  and  he  was  the  most  patient  and  gen- 
tle of  hosts.  He  praised  the  beautiful  cyclamen 
which  grows  all  about  Florence  ;  he  admired  Wash- 
ington ;  talked  of  Wordsworth,  Byron,  Massinger, 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  To  be  sure,  he  is  decided 
in  his  opinions,  likes  to  surprise,  and  is  well  con- 
tent to  impress,  if  possible,  his  English  whim  upon 
the  immutable  past.  No  great  man  ever  had  a 
great  son,  if  Philip  and  Alexander  be  not  an  excep- 
tion ;  and  Philip  he  calls  the  greater  man.  In  art, 
he  loves  the  Greeks,  and  in  sculpture,  them  only. 
He  prefers  the  Venus  to  everything  else,  and,  after 
that,  the  head  of  Alexander,  in  the  gallery  here. 
He  prefers  John  of  Bologna  to  Michael  Angelo  ;  in 
painting,  Raffaelle,  and  shares  the  growing  taste 
for  Perugino  and  the  early  masters.  The  Greek 
histories  he  thought  the  only  good ;  and  after  them, 
Voltaire's.  I  could  not  make  him  praise  Mackin- 
tosh, nor  my  more  recent  friends  ;  Montaigne  very 
cordially,  —  and  Charron  also,  which  seemed  un- 
discriminating.  He  thought  Degerando  indebted 
to  "  Lucas  on  Happiness  "  and  "  Lucas  on  Holi- 
ness "  !  He  pestered  me  with  Southey ;  but  who  is 
Southey? 


12  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

He  invited  me  to  breakfast  on  Friday.  On  Fri- 
day I  did  not  fail  to  go,  and  this  time  with  Green- 
ough.  He  entertained  us  at  once  with  reciting  half 
a  dozen  hexameter  lines  of  Julius  Caesar's !  —  from 
Donatus,  he  said.  He  glorified  Lord  Chesterfield 
more  than  was  necessary,  and  undervalued  Burke, 
and  undervalued  Socrates ;  designated  as  three  of 
the  greatest  of  men,  Washington,  Phocion  and  Ti- 
moleon,  —  much  as  our  pomologists,  in  their  lists, 
select  the  three  or  the  six  best  pears  "  for  a  small 
orchard  ; "  —  and  did  not  even  omit  to  remark  the 
similar  termination  of  their  names.  "  A  great 
man,"  he  said,  "  should  make  great  sacrifices  and 
kill  his  hundred  oxen  without  knowing  whether 
they  would  be  consumed  by  gods  and  heroes,  or 
whether  the  flies  would  eat  them."  I  had  visited 
Professor  Amici,  who  had  skown  me  his  micro- 
scopes, magnifying  (it  was  said)  two  thousand  di- 
ameters; and  I  spoke  of  the  uses  to  which  they 
were  applied.  Landor  despised  entomology,  yet,  in 
the  same  breath,  said,  "  the  sublime  was  in  a  grain 
of  dust."  I  suppose  I  teased  him  about  recent 
writers,  but  he  professed  never  to  have  heard  of 
Herschel,  not  even  by  name.  One  room  was  full 
of  pictures,  which  he  likes  to  show,  especially  one 
piece,  standing  before  which  he  said  "  he  would 
give  fifty  guineas  to  the  man  that  would  swear  it 
was  a  Domenichino."  I  was  more  curious  to  sea 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  13 

his  library,  but  Mr.  H ,  one  of  the  guests,  told 

me  that  Mr.  Landor  gives  away  his  books  and  has 
never  more  than  a  dozen  at  a  time  in  his  house. 

Mr.  Landor  carries  to  its  height  the  love  of  freak 
which  the  English  delight  to  indulge,  as  if  to  sig- 
nalize their  commanding  freedom.  He  has  a  won- 
derful brain,  despotic,  violent  and  inexhaustible, 
meant  for  a  soldier,  by  what  chance  converted  to 
letters ;  in  which  there  is  not  a  style  nor  a  tint  not 
known  to  him,  yet  with  an  English  appetite  for  ac- 
tion and  heroes.  The  thing  done  avails,  and  not 
what  is  said  about  it.  An  original  sentence,  a  step 
forward,  is  worth  more  than  all  the  censures.  Lan- 
dor is  strangely  undervalued  in  England ;  usually 
ignored  and  sometimes  savagely  attacked  in  the 
Reviews.  The  criticism  may  be  right  or  wrong, 
and  is  quickly  forgotten ;  but  year  after  year  the 
scholar  must  still  go  back  to  Landor  for  a  multi- 
tude of  elegant  sentences ;  for  wisdom,  wit,  and  in- 
dignation that  are  unforgetable. 

From  London,  on  the  5th  August,  I  went  to 
Highgate,  and  wrote  a  note  to  Mr.  Coleridge,  re- 
questing leave  to  pay  my  respects  to  him.  It  was 
near  noon.  Mr.  Coleridge  sent  a  verbal  message 
that  he  was  in  bed,  but  if  I  would  call  after  one 
o'clock  he  would  see  me.  I  returned  at  one,  and 
he  appeared,  a  short,  thick  old  man,  with  bright 


14  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

blue  eyes  and  fine  clear  complexion,  leaning  on  his 
cane.  He  took  snuff  freely,  which  presently  soiled 
his  cravat  and  neat  black  suit.  He  asked  whether  I 
knew  Allston,  and  spoke  warmly  of  his  merits  and 
doings  when  he  knew  him  in  Rome  ;  what  a  master 
of  the  Titianesque  he  was,  &c.,  &c.  He  spoke  of 
Dr.  Channing.  It  was  an  unspeakable  misfortune 
that  he  should  have  turned  out  a  Unitarian  af- 
ter all.  On  this,  he  burst  into  a  declamation  on 
the  folly  and  ignorance  of  Unitarianism,  — its  high 
unreasonableness;  and  taking  up  Bishop  Water- 
land's  book,  which  lay  on  the  table,  he  read  with 
vehemence  two  or  three  pages  written  by  himself  in 
the  fly-leaves,  —  passages,  too,  which,  I  believe,  are 
printed  in  the  "  Aids  to  Reflection."  When  he 
stopped  to  take  breath,  I  interposed  that  "  whilst  I 
highly  valued  all  his  explanations,  I  was  bound  to 
tell  him  that  I  was  born  and  bred  a  Unitarian." 
"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  supposed  so;"  and  continued  as 
before.  It  was  a  wonder  that  after  so  many  ages  of 
unquestioning  acquiescence  in  the  doctrine  of  St. 
Paul,  —  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which  was  also 
according  to  Philo  Juda3us  the  doctrine  of  the  Jews 
before  Christ,  —  this  handful  of  Priestleians  should 
take  on  themselves  to  deny  it,  &c.,  &c.  He  was 
very  sorry  that  Dr.  Channing,  a  man  to  whom  he 
looked  up,  —  no,  to  say  that  he  looked  up  to  him 
would  be  to  speak  falsely,  but  a  man  whom  he 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  15 

looked  at  with  so  much  interest,  —  should  embrace 
such  views.  When  he  saw  Dr.  Channing  he  had 
hinted  to  him  that  he  was  afraid  he  loved  Christi- 
anity for  what  was  lovely  and  excellent,  —  he  loved 
the  good  in  it,  and  not  the  true;  —  "And  I  tell  you, 
sir,  that  I  have  known  ten  persons  who  loved  the 
good,  for  one  person  who  loved  the  true ;  but  it  is  a 
far  greater  virtue  to  love  the  true  for  itself  alone, 
than  to  love  the  good  for  itself  alone."  He  (Cole- 
ridge) knew  all  about  Unitarianism  perfectly  well, 
because  he  had  once  been  a  Unitarian  and  knew 
what  quackery  it  was.  He  had  been  called  "  the 
rising  star  of  Unitarianism."  He  went  on  defining, 
or  rather  refining  :  "  The  Trinitarian  doctrine  was 
realism ;  the  idea  of  God  was  not  essential,  but  su- 
per-essential;"  talked  of  trinism  and  tetrakism 
and  much  more,  of  which  I  only  caught  this,  "  that 
the  will  was  that  by  which  a  person  is  a  person ; 
because,  if  one  should  push  me  in  the  street,  and 
so  I  should  force  the  man  next  me  into  the  ken- 
nel, I  should  at  once  exclaim,  I  did  not  do  it,  sir, 
meaning  it  was  not  my  will."  And  this  also,  that 
"  if  you  should  insist  on  your  faith  here  in  England, 
and  I  on  mine,  mine  would  be  the  hotter  side  of 
the  fagot." 

I  took  advantage  of  a  pause  to  say  that  he  had 
many  readers  of  all  religious  opinions  in  America, 
and  I  proceeded  to  inquire  if  the  "  extract "  from 


16  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  Independent's  pamphlet,  in  the  third  volume 
of  the  Friend,  were  a  veritable  quotation.  He  re- 
plied that  it  was  really  taken  from  a  pamphlet  in 
his  possession  entitled  "  A  Protest  of  one  of  the 
Independents,"  or  something  to  that  effect.  I  told 
him  how  excellent  I  thought  it  and  how  much  I 
wished  to  see  the  entire  work.  "Yes,"  he  said, 
"  the  man  was  a  chaos  of  truths,  but  lacked  the 
knowledge  that  God  was  a  God  of  order.  Yet  the 
passage  would  no  doubt  strike  you  more  in  the  quo- 
tation than  in  the  original,  for  I  have  filtered  it." 

When  I  rose  to  go,  he  said,  "  I  do  not  know 
whether  you  care  about  poetry,  but  I  will  repeat 
some  verses  I  lately  made  on  my  baptismal  anni- 
versary," and  he  recited  with  strong  emphasis, 
standing,  ten  or  twelve  lines  beginning,  — 

"  Born  unto  God  in  Christ " 

He  inquired  where  I  had  been  travelling;  and 
on  learning  that  I  had  been  in  Malta  and  Sicily,  he 
compared  one  island  with  the  other,  repeating  what 
he  had  said  to  the  Bishop  of  London  when  he  re- 
turned from  that  country,  that  Sicily  was  an  excel- 
lent school  of  political  economy  ;  for,  in  any  town 
there,  it  only  needed  to  ask  what  the  government 
enacted,  and  reverse  that,  to  know  what  ought  to 
be  done ;  it  was  the  most  felicitously  opposite  legis- 
lation to  anything  good  and  wise.  There  were  only 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  17 

three  things  which  the  government  had  brought 
into  that  garden  of  delights,  namely,  itch,  pox  and 
famine.  Whereas  in  Malta,  the  force  of  law  and 
mind  was  seen,  in  making  that  barren  rock  of  semi- 
Saracen  inhabitants  the  seat  of  population  and 
plenty.  Going  out,  he  showed  me  in  the  next 
apartment  a  picture  of  Allston's,  and  told  me  that 
Montague,  a  picture-dealer,  once  came  to  see  him, 
and  glancing  towards  this,  said  "  "Well,  you  have 
got  a  picture !  "  thinking  it  the  work  of  an  old 
master ;  afterwards,  Montague,  still  talking  with 
his  back  to  the  canvas,  put  up  his  hand  and  touched 
it,  and  exclaimed,  "  By  Heaven !  this  picture  is 
not  ten  years  old  :  "  —  so  delicate  and  skilful  was 
that  man's  touch. 

I  was  in  his  company  for  about  an  hour,  but 
find  it  impossible  to  recall  the  largest  part  of  his 
discourse,  which  was  often  like  so  many  printed 
paragraphs  in  his  book,  —  perhaps  the  same,  —  so 
readily  did  he  fall  into  certain  commonplaces.  As 
I  might  have  foreseen,  the  visit  was  rather  a  spec- 
tacle than  a  conversation,  of  no  use  beyond  the  sat- 
isfaction of  my  curiosity.  He  was  old  and  preoc- 
cupied, and  could  not  bend  to  a  new  companion 
and  think  with  him. 

From  Edinburgh  I  went  to  the  Highlands.  On 
my  return  I  came  from  Glasgow  to  Dumfries,  and 


18  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

being  intent  on  delivering  a  letter  which  I  had 
brought  from  Rome,  inquired  for  Craigenputtock. 
It  was  a  farm  in  Nithsdale,  in  the  parish  of  Dun- 
score,  sixteen  miles  distant.  No  public  coach  passed 
near  it,  so  I  took  a  private  carriage  from  the  inn. 
I  found  the  house  amid  desolate  heathery  hills, 
where  the  lonely  scholar  nourished  his  mighty 
heart.  Carlyle  was  a  man  from  his  youth,  an  au- 
thor who  did  not  need  to  hide  from  his  readers, 
and  as  absolute  a  man  of  the  world,  unknown  and 
exiled  on  that  hill-farm,  as  if  holding  on  his  own 
terms  what  is  best  in  London.  He  was  tall  and 
gaunt,  with  a  cliff-like  brow,  self-possessed  and 
holding  his  extraordinary  powers  of  conversation 
in  easy  command ;  clinging  to  his  northern  accent 
with  evident  relish  ;  full  of  lively  anecdote  and  with 
a  streaming  humor  which  floated  every  thing  he 
looked  upon.  His  talk  playfully  exalting  the  fa- 
miliar objects,  put  the  companion  at  once  into  an 
acquaintance  with  his  Lars  and  Lemurs,  and  it  was 
very  pleasant  to  learn  what  was  predestined  to  be 
a  pretty  mythology.  Few  were  the  objects  and 
lonely  the  man  ;  "  not  a  person  to  speak  to  within 
sixteen  miles  except  the  minister  of  Dunscore ; " 
so  that  books  inevitably  made  his  topics. 

He  had  names  of  his  own  for  all  the  matters 
familiar  to  his  discourse.  Blackwood's  was  the 
"sand  magazine;"  Eraser's  nearer  approach  to 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  19 

possibility  of  life  was  the  "  mud  magazine ; "  a 
piece  of  road  near  by,  that  marked  some  failed 
enterprise,  was  the  "grave  of  the  last  sixpence." 
When  too  much  praise  of  any  genius  annoyed  him 
he  professed  hugely  to  admire  the  talent  shown  by 
his  pig.  He  had  spent  much  time  and  contrivance 
in  confining  the  poor  beast  to  one  enclosure  in  his 
pen,  but  pig,  by  great  strokes  of  judgment,  had 
found  out  how  to  let  a  board  down,  and  had  foiled 
him.  For  all  that  he  still  thought  man  the  most 
plastic  little  fellow  in  the  planet,  and  he  liked 
Nero's  death,  "  Qualis  artifex  pereo  1 "  better  than 
most  history.  He  worships  a  man  that  will  man- 
ifest any  truth  to  him.  At  one  tune  he  had  in- 
quired and  read  a  good  deal  about  America.  Lan- 
dor's  principle  was  mere  rebellion ;  and  that  he 
feared  was  the  American  principle.  The  best  thing 
he  knew  of  that  country  was  that  in  it  a  man  can 
have  meat  for  his  labor.  He  had  read  in  Stewart's 
book  that  when  he  inquired  in  a  New  York  hotel 
for  the  Boots,  he  had  been  shown  across  the  street 
and  had  found  Mungo  in  his  own  house  dining  on 
roast  turkey. 

We  talked  of  books.  Plato  he  does  not  read, 
and  he  disparaged  Socrates ;  and,  when  pressed, 
persisted  in  making  Mirabeau  a  hero.  Gibbon  he 
called  the  "  splendid  bridge  from  the  old  world  to 
the  new."  His  own  reading  had  been  multifarious, 


20  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Tristram  Shandy  was  one  of  his  first  books  after 
Robinson  Crusoe,  and  Robertson's  America  an 
early  favorite.  Rousseau's  Confessions  had  discov- 
ered to  him  that  he  was  not  a  dunce ;  and  it  was 
now  ten  years  since  he  had  learned  German,  by 
the  advice  of  a  man  who  told  him  he  would  find  in 
that  language  what  he  wanted. 

He  took  despairing  or  satirical  views  of  litera- 
ture at  this  moment ;  recounted  the  incredible 
sums  paid  in  one  year  by  the  great  booksellers  for 
puffing.  Hence  it  comes  that  no  newspaper  is 
trusted  now,  no  books  are  bought,  and  the  book- 
sellers are  on  the  eve  of  bankruptcy. 

He  still  returned  to  English  pauperism,  the 
crowded  country,  the  selfish  abdication  by  public 
men  of  all  that  public  persons  should  perform. 
Government  should  direct  poor  men  what  to  do. 
Poor  Irish  folk  come  wandering  over  these  moors. 
My  dame  makes  it  a  rule  to  give  to  every  son  of 
Adam  bread  to  eat,  and  supplies  his  wants  to  the 
next  house.  But  here  are  thousands  of  acres 
which  might  give  them  all  meat,  and  nobody  to 
bid  these  poor  Irish  go  to  the  moor  and  till  it. 
They  burned  the  stacks  and  so  found  a  way  to 
force  the  rich  people  to  attend  to  them. 

We  went  out  to  walk  over  long  hills,  and  looked 
at  Criffel,  then  without  his  cap,  and  down  into 
Wordsworth's  country.  There  we  sat  down  and 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  21 

talked  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  It  was  not 
Carlyle's  fault  that  we  talked  on  that  topic,  for 
he  had  the  natural  disinclination  of  every  nimble 
spirit  to  bruise  itself  against  walls,  and  did  not 
like  to  place  himself  where  no  step  can  be  taken. 
But  he  was  honest  and  true,  and  cognizant  of  the 
subtile  links  that  bind  ages  together,  and  saw  how 
every  event  affects  all  the  future.  "Christ  died 
on  the  tree  ;  that  built  Dunscore  kirk  yonder ;  that 
brought  you  and  me  together.  Time  has  only  a 
relative  existence." 

He  was  already  turning  his  eyes  towards  Lon- 
don with  a  scholar's  appreciation.  London  is  the 
heart  of  the  world  he  said,  wonderful  only  from 
the  mass  of  human  beings.  He  liked  the  huge 
machine.  Each  keeps  its  own  round.  The  baker's 
boy  brings  muffins  to  the  window  at  a  fixed  hour 
every  day,  and  that  is  all  the  Londoner  knows  or 
wishes  to  know  on  the  subject.  But  it  turned  out 
good  men.  He  named  certain  individuals,  espe- 
cially one  man  of  letters,  his  friend,  the  best  mind 
he  knew,  whom  London  had  well  served. 

On  the  28th  August  I  went  to  Eydal  Mount, 
to  pay  my  respects  to  Mr.  Wordsworth.  His 
daughters  called  in  their  father,  a  plain,  elderly, 
white-haired  man,  not  prepossessing,  and  disfigured 
by  green  goggles.  He  sat  down,  and  talked  with 


22  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

great  simplicity.  He  had  just  returned  from  a 
journey.  His  health  was  good,  but  he  had  broken 
a  tooth  by  a  fall,  when  walking  with  two  lawyers, 
and  had  said  that  he  was  glad  it  did  not  happen 
forty  years  ago ;  whereupon  they  had  praised  his 
philosophy. 

He  had  much  to  say  of  America,  the  more  that 
it  gave  occasion  for  his  favorite  topic,  —  that  so- 
ciety is  being  enlightened  by  a  superficial  tuition, 
out  of  all  proportion  to  its  being  restrained  by 
moral  culture.  Schools  do  no  good.  Tuition  is 
not  education.  He  thinks  more  of  the  education 
of  circumstances  than  of  tuition.  'T  is  not  question 
whether  there  are  offences  of  which  the  law  takes 
cognizance,  but  whether  there  are  offences  of  which 
the  law  does  not  take  cognizance.  Sin  is  what  he 
fears,  —  and  how  society  is  to  escape  without  grav- 
est mischiefs  from  this  source  ?  He  has  even  said, 
what  seemed  a  paradox,  that  they  needed  a  civil 
war  in  America,  to  teach  the  necessity  of  knitting 
the  social  ties  stronger.  "  There  may  be,"  he  said, 
"in  America  some  vulgarity  in  manner,  but  that's 
not  important.  That  comes  of  the  pioneer  state  of 
things.  But  I  fear  they  are  too  much  given  to  the 
making  of  money ;  and  secondly,  to  politics ;  that 
they  make  political  distinction  the  end  and  not  the 
means.  And  I  fear  they  lack  a  class  of  men  of 
leisure,  —  in  short,  of  gentlemen, — to  give  a  tone 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  23 

of  honor  to  the  community.  I  am  told  that  things 
are  boasted  of  in  the  second  class  of  society  there, 
which,  in  England,  —  God  knows,  are  done  in  Eng- 
land every  day,  but  would  never  be  spoken  of.  In 
America  I  wish  to  know  not  how  many  churches  or 
schools,  but  what  newspapers  ?  My  friend  Colonel 
Hamilton,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  who  was  a  year 
in  America,  assures  me  that  the  newspapers  are 
atrocious,  and  accuse  members  of  Congress  of  steal- 
ing spoons !  "  He  was  against  taking  off  the  tax 
on  newspapers  in  England,  —  which  the  reformers 
represent  as  a  tax  upon  knowledge,  — for  this  rea- 
son, that  they  would  be  inundated  with  base  prints. 
He  said  he  talked  on  political  aspects,  for  he 
wished  to  impress  on  me  and  all  good  Americans 
to  cultivate  the  moral,  the  conservative,  &c.,  &c., 
and  never  to  call  into  action  the  physical  strength 
of  the  people,  as  had  just  now  been  done  in  Eng- 
land in  the  Reform  Bill,  —  a  thing  prophesied  by 
Delolme.  He  alluded  once  or  twice  to  his  conver- 
sation with  Dr.  Channing,  who  had  recently  visited 
him,  (laying  his  hand  on  a  particular  chair  in 
which  the  Doctor  had  sat.) 

The  conversation  turned  on  books.  Lucretius 
he  esteems  a  far  higher  poet  than  Virgil ;  not  in 
his  system,  which  is  nothing,  but  in  his  power  of 
illustration.  Faith  is  necessary  to  explain  any- 
thing, and  to  reconcile  the  foreknowledge  of  God 


24  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

with  human  evil.  Of  Cousin  (whose  lectures  we 
had  all  been  reading  in  Boston),  he  knew  only  the 
name. 

I  inquired  if  he  had  read  Carlyle's  critical  arti- 
cles and  translations.  He  said  he  thought  him 
sometimes  insane.  He  proceeded  to  abuse  Goethe's 
Wilhelm  Meister  heartily.  It  was  full  of  all  man- 
ner of  fornication.  It  was  like  the  crossing  of  flies 
in  the  air.  He  had  never  gone  farther  than  the 
first  part ;  so  disgusted  was  he  that  he  threw  the 
book  across  the  room.  I  deprecated  this  wrath, 
and  said  what  I  could  for  the  better  parts  of  the 
book,  and  he  courteously  promised  to  look  at  it 
again.  Carlyle  he  said  wrote  most  obscurely. 
He  was  clever  and  deep,  but  he  defied  the  sympa- 
thies of  every  body.  Even  Mr.  Coleridge  wrote 
more  clearly,  though  he  had  always  wished  Cole- 
ridge would  write  more  to  be  understood.  He  led 
me  out  into  his  garden,  and  showed  me  the  gravel 
walk  in  which  thousands  of  his  lines  were  com- 
posed. His  eyes  are  much  inflamed.  This  is  no 
loss  except  for  reading,  because  he  never  writes 
prose,  and  of  poetry  he  carries  even  hundreds  of 
lines  in  his  head  before  writing  them.  He  had 
just  returned  from  a  visit  to  Staffa,  and  within 
three  days  had  made  three  sonnets  on  Fingal's 
Cave,  and  was  composing  a  fourth  when  he  was 
called  in  to  see  me.  He  said  "  If  you  are  inter« 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  25 

ested  in  my  verses  perhaps  you  will  like  to  hear 
these  lines."  I  gladly  assented,  and  he  recollected 
himself  for  a  few  moments  and  then  stood  forth 
and  repeated,  one  after  the  other,  the  three  entire 
sonnets  with  great  animation.  I  fancied  the  sec- 
ond and  third  more  beautiful  than  his  poems  are 
wont  to  be.  The  third  is  addressed  to  the  flowers, 
which,  he  said,  especially  the  ox-eye  daisy,  are  very 
abundant  on  the  top  of  the  rock.  The  second  al- 
ludes to  the  name  of  the  cave,  which  is  "  Cave  of 
Music  ;  "  the  first  to  the  circumstance  of  its  being 
visited  by  the  promiscuous  company  of  the  steam- 
boat. 

This  recitation  was  so  unlocked  for  and  surpris- 
ing, —  he,  the  old  Wordsworth,  standing  apart, 
and  reciting  to  me  in  a  garden-walk,  like  a  school- 
boy declaiming,  —  that  I  at  first  was  near  to 
laugh;  but  recollecting  myself,  that  I  had  come 
thus  far  to  see  a  poet  and  he  was  chanting  poems 
to  me,  I  saw  that  he  was  right  and  I  was  wrong, 
and  gladly  gave  myself  up  to  hear.  I  told  him 
how  much  the  few  printed  extracts  had  quickened 
the  desire  to  possess  his  unpublished  poems.  He 
replied  he  never  was  in  haste  to  publish;  partly 
because  he  corrected  a  good  deal,  and  every  alter- 
ation is  ungraciously  received  after  printing;  but 
what  he  had  written  would  be  printed,  whether  he 
lived  or  died,  I  said  "  Tintern  Abbey  "  appeared 


26  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

to  be  the  favorite  poem  with  the  public,  but  more 
contemplative  readers  preferred  the  first  books  of 
the  "  Excursion,"  and  the  Sonnets.  He  said  "  Yes, 
they  are  better."  He  preferred  such  of  his  poems 
as  touched  the  affections,  to  any  others  ;  for  what- 
ever is  didactic,  —  what  theories  of  society,  and  so 
on,  —  might  perish  quickly  ;  but  whatever  com- 
bined a  truth  with  an  affection  was  KT^O.  'cs  'act, 
good  to-day  and  good  forever.  He  cited  the  son- 
net "  On  the  feelings  of  a  high-minded  Spaniard," 
which  he  preferred  to  any  other  (I  so  understood 
him),  and  the  "  Two  Voices ;  "  and  quoted,  with 
evident  pleasure,  the  verses  addressed  "  To  the 
Skylark."  In  this  connection  he  said  of  the  New- 
tonian theory  that  it  might  yet  be  superseded  and 
forgotten ;  and  Dalton's  atomic  theory. 

When  I  prepared  to  depart  he  said  he  wished  to 
show  me  what  a  common  person  in  England  could 
do,  and  he  led  me  into  the  enclosure  of  his  clerk, 
a  young  man  to  whom  he  had  given  this  slip  of 
ground,  which  was  laid  out,  or  its  natural  capabili- 
ties shown,  with  much  taste.  He  then  said  he 
would  show  me  a  better  way  towards  the  inn  ;  and 
he  walked  a  good  part  of  a  mile,  talking  and  ever 
and  anon  stopping  short  to  impress  the  word  or 
the  verse,  and  finally  parted  from  me  with  great 
kindness  and  returned  across  the  fields. 

Wordsworth  honored  himself  by  his  simple  ad« 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  27 

herence  to  truth,  and  was  very  willing  not  to  shine ; 
but  he  surprised  by  the  hard  limits  of  his  thought. 
To  judge  from  a  single  conversation,  he  made  the 
impression  of  a  narrow  and  very  English  mind ;  of 
one  who  paid  for  his  rare  elevation  by  general 
tameness  and  conformity.  Off  his  own  beat,  his 
opinions  were  of  no  value.  It  is  not  very  rare  to 
find  persons  loving  sympathy  and  ease,  who  expi- 
ate their  departure  from  the  common  in  one  direc- 
tion, by  their  conformity  in  every  other. 


CHAPTER  II. 

VOYAGE   TO   ENGLAND. 

THE  occasion  of  my  second  visit  to  England  was 
an  invitation  from  some  Mechanics'  Institutes  in 
Lancashire  and  Yorkshire,  which  separately  are 
organized  much  in  the  same  way  as  our  New  Eng- 
land Lyceums,  but  in  1847  had  been  linked  into  a 
"  Union,"  which  embraced  twenty  or  thirty  towns 
and  cities  and  presently  extended  into  the  middle 
counties  and  northward  into  Scotland.  I  was  in- 
vited, on  liberal  terms,  to  read  a  series  of  lectures 
in  them  all.  The  request  was  urged  with  every 
kind  suggestion  and  every  assurance  of  aid  and 
comfort,  by  friendliest  parties  in  Manchester,  who, 
in  the  sequel,  amply  redeemed  their  word.  The 
remuneration  was  equivalent  to  the  fees  at  that 
time  paid  in  this  country  for  the  like  services.  At 
all  events  it  was  sufficient  to  cover  any  travelling 
expenses,  and  the  proposal  offered  an  excellent  op- 
portunity of  seeing  the  interior  of  England  and 
Scotland,  by  means  of  a  home  and  a  committee  of 
intelligent  friends  awaiting  me  in  every  town. 

I  did  not  go  very  willingly.     I  am  not  a  good 


VOYAGE  TO  ENGLAND.  29 

traveller,  nor  have  I  found  that  long  journeys  yield 
a  fair  share  of  reasonable  hours.  But  the  invita- 
tion was  repeated  and  pressed  at  a  moment  of  more 
leisure  and  when  I  was  a  little  spent  by  some  un- 
usual studies.  I  wanted  a  change  and  a  tonic,  and 
England  was  proposed  to  me.  Besides,  there  were 
at  least  the  dread  attraction  and  salutary  influ- 
ences of  the  sea.  So  1  took  my  berth  in  the  packet- 
ship  Washington  Irving  and  sailed  from  Boston  on 
Tuesday,  5th  October,  1847. 

On  Friday  at  noon  we  had  only  made  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-four  miles.  A  nimble  Indian 
would  have  swum  as  far ;  but  the  captain  affirmed 
that  the  ship  would  show  us  in  time  all  her  paces, 
and  we  crept  along  through  the  floating  drift  of 
boards,  logs  and  chips,  which  the  rivers  of  Maine 
and  New  Brunswick  pour  into  the  sea  after  a 
freshet. 

At  last,  on  Sunday  night,  after  doing  one  day's 
work  in  four,  the  storm  came,  the  winds  blew,  and 
we  flew  before  a  north-wester  which  strained  every 
rope  and  sail.  The  good  ship  darts  through  the 
water  all  day,  all  night,  like  a  fish ;  quivering  with 
speed,  gliding  through  liquid  leagues,  sliding  from 
horizon  to  horizon.  She  has  passed  Cape  Sable  ; 
she  has  reached  the  Banks ;  the  land-birds  are  left ; 
gulls,  haglets,  ducks,  petrels,  swim,  dive  and  hover 
around ;  no  fishermen ;  she  has  passed  the  Banks, 


30  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

left  five  sail  behind  her  far  on  the  edge  of  the  west 
at  sundown,  which  were  far  east  of  us  at  morn,  — 
though  they  say  at  sea  a  stern  chase  is  a  long  race, 
—  and  still  we  fly  for  our  lives.  The  shortest  sea- 
line  from  Boston  to  Liverpool  is  2,850  miles.  This 
a  steamer  keeps,  and  saves  150  miles.  A  sailing 
ship  can  never  go  in  a  shorter  line  than  3,000, 
and  usually  it  is  much  longer.  Our  good  master 
keeps  his  kites  up  to  the  last  moment,  studding- 
sails  alow  and  aloft,  and  by  incessant  straight  steer- 
ing, never  loses  a  rod  of  way.  Watchfulness  is  the 
law  of  the  ship,  —  watch  on  watch,  for  advantage 
and  for  life.  Since  the  ship  was  built,  it  seems, 
the  master  never  slept  but  in  his  day-clothes  whilst 
on  board.  "There  are  many  advantages,"  says 
Saadi,  "  in  sea-voyaging,  but  security  is  not  one  of 
them."  Yet  in  hurrying  over  these  abysses,  what- 
ever dangers  we  are  running  into,  we  are  certainly 
running  out  of  the  risks  of  hundreds  of  miles  every 
day,  which  have  their  own  chances  of  squall,  col- 
lision, sea-stroke,  piracy,  cold  and  thunder.  Hour 
for  hour,  the  risk  on  a  steamboat  is  greater ;  but 
the  speed  is  safety,  or  twelve  days  of  danger  in- 
stead of  twenty-four. 

Our  ship  was  registered  750  tons,  and  weighed 
perhaps,  with  all  her  freight,  1,500  tons.  The 
mainmast,  from  the  deck  to  the  top-button,  meas- 
ured 115  feet ;  the  length  of  the  deck  from  stem  to 


VOYAGE   TO  ENGLAND.  31 

stern,  155.  It  is  impossible  not  to  personify  a 
ship  ;  every  body  does,  in  every  thing  they  say  :  — 
she  behaves  well ;  she  minds  her  rudder ;  she  swims 
like  a  duck  ;  she  runs  her  nose  into  the  water ;  she 
looks  into  a  port.  Then  that  wonderful  esprit  du 
corps  by  which  we  adopt  into  our  self-love  every 
thing  we  touch,  makes  us  all  champions  of  her 
sailing  qualities. 

The  conscious  ship  hears  all  the  praise.  In  one 
week  she  has  made  1,467  miles,  and  now,  at  night, 
seems  to  hear  the  steamer  behind  her,  which  left 
Boston  to-day  at  two ;  has  mended  her  speed  and  is 
flying  before  the  gray  south  wind  eleven  and  a  half 
knots  the  hour.  The  sea-fire  shines  in  her  wake 
and  far  around  wherever  a  wave  breaks.  I  read 
the  hour,  9h.  45',  on  my  watch  by  this  light.  Near 
the  equator  you  can  read  small  print  by  it ;  and 
the  mate  describes  the  phosphoric  insects,  when 
taken  up  in  a  pail,  as  shaped  like  a  Carolina  po- 
tato. 

I  find  the  sea-life  an  acquired  taste,  like  that  for 
tomatoes  and  olives.  The  confinement,  cold,  mo- 
tion, noise  and  odor  are  not  to  be  dispensed  with. 
The  floor  of  your  room  is  sloped  at  an  angle  of 
twenty  or  thirty  degrees,  and  I  waked  every  morn- 
ing with  the  belief  that  some  one  was  tipping  up 
my  berth.  Nobody  likes  to  be  treated  ignomin- 
iously,  upset,  shoved  against  the  side  of  the  house, 


82  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

rolled  over,  suffocated  with  bilge,  mephitis  and 
stewing  oil.  We  get  used  to  these  annoyances  at 
last,  but  the  dread  of  the  sea  remains  longer.  The 
sea  is  masculine,  the  type  of  active  strength.  Look, 
what  egg-shells  are  drifting  all  over  it,  each  one, 
like  ours,  filled  with  men  in  ecstasies  of  terror,  alter- 
nating with  cockney  conceit,  as  the  sea  is  rough  or 
smooth.  Is  this  sad-colored  circle  an  eternal  ceme- 
tery ?  In  our  graveyards  we  scoop  a  pit,  but  this 
aggressive  water  opens  mile-wide  pits  and  chasms 
and  makes  a  mouthful  of  a  fleet.  To  the  geolo- 
gist the  sea  is  the  only  firmament ;  the  land  is  in 
perpetual  flux  and  change,  now  blown  up  like  a 
tumor,  now  sunk  in  a  chasm,  and  the  registered 
observations  of  a  few  hundred  years  find  it  in  a 
perpetual  tilt,  rising  and  falling.  The  sea  keeps 
its  old  level ;  and  't  is  no  wonder  that  the  history 
of  our  race  is  so  recent,  if  the  roar  of  the  ocean  is 
silencing  our  traditions.  A  rising  of  the  sea,  such 
as  has  been  observed,  say  an  inch  in  a  century, 
from  east  to  west  on  the  land,  will  bury  all  the 
towns,  monuments,  bones,  and  knowledge  of  man- 
kind, steadily  and  insensibly.  If  it  is  capable  of 
these  great  and  secular  mischiefs,  it  is  quite  as 
ready  at  private  and  local  damage  ;  and  of  this  no 
landsman  seems  so  fearful  as  the  seaman.  Such 
discomfort  and  such  danger  as  the  narratives  of 
the  captain  and  mate  disclose  are  bad  enough  as 


VOYAGE   TO  ENGLAND.  83 

the  costly  fee  we  pay  for  entrance  to  Europe  ;  but 
the  wonder  is  always  new  that  any  sane  man  can 
be  a  sailor.  And  here  on  the  second  day  of  our 
voyage,  stepped  out  a  little  boy  in  his  shirt-sleeves, 
who  had  hid  himself  whilst  the  ship  was  in  port,  in 
the  bread-closet,  having  no  money  and  wishing  to 
go  to  England.  The  sailors  have  dressed  him  in 
Guernsey  frock,  with  a  knife  in  his  belt,  and  he  is 
climbing  nimbly  about  after  them ;  —  "  likes  the 
work  first-rate,  and  if  the  captain  will  take  him, 
means  now  to  come  back  again  in  the  ship."  The 
mate  avers  that  this  is  the  history  of  all  sailors  ; 
nine  out  of  ten  are  runaway  boys ;  and  adds  that 
all  of  them  are  sick  of  the  sea,  but  stay  in  it  out  of 
pride.  Jack  has  a  life  of  risks,  incessant  abuse 
and  the  worst  pay.  It  is  a  little  better  with  the 
mate  and  not  very  much  better  with  the  captain. 
A  hundred  dollars  a  month  is  reckoned  high  pay. 
If  sailors  were  contented,  if  they  had  not  resolved 
again  and  again  not  to  go  to  sea  any  more,  I  should 
respect  them. 

Of  course  the  inconveniences  and  terrors  of  the 
sea  are  not  of  any  account  to  those  whose  minds 
are  preoccupied.  The  water-laws,  arctic  frost,  the 
mountain,  the  mine,  only  shatter  cockneyism ;  every 
noble  activity  makes  room  for  itself.  A  great 
mind  is  a  good  sailor,  as  a  great  heart  is.  And 


84  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  sea  is  not  slow  in  disclosing  inestimable  secrets 
to  a  good  naturalist. 

'Tis  a  good  rule  in  every  journey  to  provide 
some  piece  of  liberal  study  to  rescue  the  hours 
which  bad  weather,  bad  company  and  taverns  steal 
from  the  best  economist.  Classics  which  at  home 
are  drowsily  read,  have  a  strange  charm  in  a  coun- 
try inn,  or  in  the  transom  of  a  merchant  brig.  I 
remember  that  some  of  the  happiest  and  most  val- 
uable hours  I  have  owed  to  books,  passed,  many 
years  ago,  on  shipboard.  The  worst  impediment 
I  have  found  at  sea  is  the  want  of  light  in  the 
cabin. 

We  found  on  board  the  usual  cabin  library; 
Basil  Hall,  Dumas,  Dickens,  Bulwer,  Balzac  and 
Sand  were  our  sea-gods.  Among  the  passengers 
there  was  some  variety  of  talent  and  profession  ; 
we  exchanged  our  experiences  and  all  learned 
something.  The  busiest  talk  with  leisure  and  con- 
venience at  sea,  and  sometimes  a  memorable  fact 
turns  up,  which  you  have  long  had  a  vacant  niche 
for,  and  seize  with  the  joy  of  a  collector.  But, 
under  the  best  conditions,  a  voyage  is  one  of  the 
severest  tests  to  try  a  man.  A  college  examination 
is  nothing  to  it.  Sea-day's  are  long  —  these  lack- 
lustre, joyless  days  which  whistled  over  us ;  but 
they  were  few  —  only  fifteen,  as  the  captain  count- 
ed, sixteen  according  to  me.  Reckoned  from  the 


VOYAGE  TO  ENGLAND.  35 

time  when  we  left  soundings,  our  speed  was  such 
that  the  captain  drew  the  line  of  his  course  in  red 
ink  on  his  chart,  for  the  encouragement  or  envy  of 
future  navigators. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  King  of  England  would 
consult  his  dignity  by  giving  audience  to  foreign 
ambassadors  in  the  cabin  of  a  man-of-war.  And 
I  think  the  white  path  of  an  Atlantic  ship  the  right 
avenue  to  the  palace  front  of  this  seafaring  people, 
who  for  hundreds  of  years  claimed  the  strict  soV' 
ereignty  of  the  sea,  and  exacted  toll  and  the  strik< 
ing  sail  from  the  ships  of  all  other  peoples.  When 
their  privilege  was  disputed  by  the  Dutch  and 
other  junior  marines,  on  the  plea  that  you  could 
never  anchor  on  the  same  wave,  or  hold  property 
in  what  was  always  flowing,  the  English  did  not 
stick  to  claim  the  channel,  or  bottom  of  all  the 
main  :  "  As  if,"  said  they,  "  we  contended  for  the 
drops  of  the  sea,  and  not  for  its  situation,  or  the 
bed  of  those  waters.  The  sea  is  bounded  by  his 
majesty's  empire." 

As  we  neared  the  land,  its  genius  was  felt.  This 
was  inevitably  the  British  side.  In  every  man's 
thought  arises  now  a  new  system,  English  senti- 
ments, English  loves  and  fears,  English  history 
and  social  modes.  Yesterday  every  passenger  had 
measured  the  speed  of  the  ship  by  watching  the 
bubbles  over  the  ship's  bulwarks.  To-day,  instead 


36  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

of  bubbles,  we  measure  by  Kinsale,  Cork,  Water- 
ford  and  Ardmore.  There  lay  the  green  shore  of 
Ireland,  like  some  coast  of  plenty.  We  could  see 
towns,  towers,  churches,  harvests ;  but  the  curse  of 
eight  hundred  years  we  could  not  discern. 


CHAPTER  III. 

LAND. 

ALFIERI  thought  Italy  and  England  the  only 
countries  worth  living  in;  the  former  because  there 
Nature  vindicates  her  rights  and  triumphs  over  the 
evils  inflicted  by  the  governments;  the  latter  be- 
cause art  conquers  nature  and  transforms  a  rude, 
ungenial  land  into  a  paradise  of  comfort  and  plenty. 
England  is  a  garden.  Under  an  ash-colored  sky, 
the  fields  have  been  combed  and  rolled  till  they 
appear  to  have  been  finished  with  a  pencil  instead 
of  a  plough.  The  solidity  of  the  structures  that 
compose  the  towns  speaks  the  industry  of  ages. 
Nothing  is  left  as  it  was  made.  Rivers,  hills,  val- 
leys, the  sea  itself,  feel  the  hand  of  a  master.  The 
long  habitation  of  a  powerful  and  ingenious  race 
has  turned  every  rood  of  land  to  its  best  use,  has 
found  all  the  capabilities,  the  arable  soil,  the  quar- 
riable  rock,  the  highways,  the  byways,  the  fords, 
the  navigable  waters ;  and  the  new  arts  of  inter- 
course meet  you  every  where  ;  so  that  England  is 
a  huge  phalanstery,  where  all  that  man  wants  is 
provided  within  the  precinct.  Cushioned  and  com- 


38  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

forted  in  every  manner,  the  traveller  rides  as  on  a 
cannon-ball,  high  and  low,  over  rivers  and  towns, 
through  mountains  in  tunnels  of  three  or  four 
miles,  at  near  twice  the  speed  of  our  trains ;  and 
reads  quietly  the  "  Times  "  newspaper,  which,  by  its 
immense  correspondence  and  reporting  seems  to 
have  machinized  the  rest  of  the  world  for  his  occa- 
sion. 

The  problem  of  the  traveller  landing  at  Liver- 
pool is,  Why  England  is  England  ?  What  are  the 
elements  of  that  power  which  the  English  hold 
over  other  nations  ?  If  there  be  one  test  of  na- 
tional genius  universally  accepted,  it  is  success; 
and  if  there  be  one  successful  country  in  the  uni- 
verse for  the  last  millennium,  that  country  is  Eng- 
land. 

A  wise  traveller  will  naturally  choose  to  visit  the 
best  of  actual  nations ;  and  an  American  has  more 
reasons  than  another  to  draw  him  to  Britain.  In 
all  that  is  done  or  begun  by  the  Americans  to- 
wards right  thinking  or  practice,  we  are  met  by  a 
civilization  already  settled  and  overpowering.  The 
culture  of  the  day,  the  thoughts  and  aims  of  men, 
are  English  thoughts  and  aims.  A  nation  consid- 
erable for  a  thousand  years  since  Egbert,  it  has, 
in  the  last  centuries,  obtained  the  ascendant,  and 
stamped  the  knowledge,  activity  and  power  of  man- 
kind with  its  impress.  Those  who  resist  it  do  not 


LAND.  89 

feel  it  or  obey  it  less.  The  Russian  in  his  snows 
is  aiming  to  be  English.  The  Turk  and  Chinese 
also  are  making  awkward  efforts  to  be  English. 
The  practical  common-sense  of  modern  society,  the 
utilitarian  direction  which  labor,  laws,  opinion,  re- 
ligion take,  is  the  natural  genius  of  the  British 
mind.  The  influence  of  France  is  a  constituent 
of  modern  civility,  but  not  enough  opposed  to  the 
English  for  the  most  wholesome  effect.  The  Amer- 
ican is  only  the  continuation  of  the  English  genius 
into  new  conditions,  more  or  less  propitious. 

See  what  books  fill  our  libraries.  Every  book 
we  read,  every  biography,  play,  romance,  in  what- 
ever form,  is  still  English  history  and  manners. 
So  that  a  sensible  Englishman  once  said  to  me, 
"As  long  as  you  do  not  grant  us  copyright,  we 
shall  have  the  teaching  of  you." 

But  we  have  the  same  difficulty  in  making  a 
social  or  moral  estimate  of  England,  that  the 
sheriff  finds  in  drawing  a  jury  to  try  some  cause 
which  has  agitated  the  whole  community  and  on 
which  every  body  finds  himself  an  interested  party. 
Officers,  jurors,  judges  have  all  taken  sides.  Eng- 
land has  inoculated  all  nations  with  her  civiliza- 
tion, intelligence  and  tastes ;  and  to  resist  the  tyr- 
anny and  prepossession  of  the  British  element,  a 
serious  man  must  aid  himself  by  comparing  with  it 
the  civilizations  of  the  farthest  east  and  west,  the 


40  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

old  Greek,  the  Oriental,  and,  much  more,  the  ideal 
standard ;  if  only  by  means  of  the  very  impatience 
which  English  forms  are  sure  to  awaken  in  inde- 
pendent minds. 

Besides,  if  we  will  visit  London,  the  present 
time  is  the  best  time,  as  some  signs  portend  that  it 
has  reached  its  highest  point.  It  is  observed  that 
the  English  interest  us  a  little  less  within  a  few 
years ;  and  hence  the  impression  that  the  British 
power  has  culminated,  is  in  solstice,  or  already  de- 
clining. 

As  soon  as  you  enter  England,  which,  with 
Wales,  is  no  larger  than  the  State  of  Georgia,1 
this  little  land  stretches  by  an  illusion  to  the  di- 
mensions of  an  empire.  The  innumerable  details, 
the  crowded  succession  of  towns,  cities,  cathedrals, 
castles  and  great  and  decorated  estates,  the  number 
and  power  of  the  trades  and  guilds,  the  military 
strength  and  splendor,  the  multitudes  of  rich  and 
of  remarkable  people,  the  servants  and  equipages, 
—  all  these  catching  the  eye  and  never  allowing  it 
to  pause,  hide  all  boundaries  by  the  impression  of 
magnificence  and  endless  wealth. 

I  reply  to  all  the  urgencies  that  refer  me  to  this 
and  that  object  indispensably  to  be  seen,  —  Yes, 
to  see  England  well  needs  a  hundred  years ;  for 

1  Add  South  Carolina,  and  you  have  more  than  an  equiva- 
lent for  the  area  of  Scotland. 


LAND,  41 

what  they  told  me  was  the  merit  of  Sir  John 
Soane's  Museum,  in  London,  —  that  it  was  well 
packed  and  well  saved,  —  is  the  merit  of  England ; 
—  it  is  stuffed  full,  in  all  corners  and  crevices,  with 
towns,  towers,  churches,  villas,  palaces,  hospitals 
and  charity-houses.  In  the  history  of  art  it  is  a 
long  way  from  a  cromlech  to  York  minster ;  yet  all 
the  intermediate  steps  may  still  be  traced  in  this 
all-preserving  island. 

The  territory  has  a  singular  perfection.  The 
climate  is  warmer  by  many  degrees  than  it  is  en- 
titled to  by  latitude.  Neither  hot  nor  cold,  there 
is  no  hour  in  the  whole  year  when  one  cannot 
work.  Here  is  no  winter,  but  such  days  as  we 
have  in  Massachusetts  in  November,  a  temperature 
which  makes  no  exhausting  demand  on  human 
strength,  but  allows  the  attainment  of  the  largest 
stature.  Charles  the  Second  said  "  It  invited  men 
abroad  more  days  in  the  year  and  more  hours  in 
the  day  than  another  country."  Then  England  has 
all  the  materials  of  a  working  country  except  wood. 
The  constant  rain,  —  a  rain  with  every  tide,  in 
some  parts  of  the  island,  —  keeps  its  multitude  of 
rivers  full  and  brings  agricultural  production  up  to 
the  highest  point.  It  has  plenty  of  water,  of  stone, 
of  potter's  clay,  of  coal,  of  salt  and  of  iron.  The 
land  naturally  abounds  with  game  ;  immense  heaths 
and  downs  are  paved  with  quails,  grouse  and  wood- 


42  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

cock,  and  the  shores  are  animated  by  water-birds. 
The  rivers  and  the  surrounding  sea  spawn  with 
fish ;  there  are  salmon  for  the  rich  and  sprats  and 
herrings  for  the  poor.  In  the  northern  lochs,  the 
herring  are  in  innumerable  shoals ;  at  one  season, 
the  country  people  say,  the  lakes  contain  one  part 
water  and  two  parts  fish. 

The  only  drawback  on  this  industrial  conven- 
iency  is  the  darkness  of  its  sky.  The  night  and 
day  are  too  nearly  of  a  color.  It  strains  the  eyes 
to  read  and  to  write.  Add  the  coal  smoke.  In 
the  manufacturing  towns,  the  fine  soot  or  blacks 
darken  the  day,  give  white  sheep  the  color  of  black 
sheep,  discolor  the  human  saliva,  contaminate  the 
air,  poison  many  plants  and  corrode  the  monuments 
and  buildings. 

The  London  fog  aggravates  the  distempers  of 
the  sky,  and  sometimes  justifies  the  epigram  on  the 
climate  by  an  English  wit,  "  in  a  fine  day,  looking 
up  a  chimney ;  in  a  foul  day,  looking  down  one." 
A  gentleman  in  Liverpool  told  me  that  he  found 
he  could  do  without  a  fire  in  his  parlor  about  one 
day  in  the  year.  It  is  however  pretended  that  the 
enormous  consumption  of  coal  in  the  island  is  also 
felt  in  modifying  the  general  climate. 

Factitious  climate,  factitious  position.  England 
resembles  a  ship  in  its  shape,  and  if  it  were  one, 
its  best  admiral  could  not  have  worked  it  or  an- 


LAND.  43 

chored  it  in  a  more  judicious  or  effective  position. 
Sir  John  Herschel  said  "  London  is  the  centre  of 
the  terrene  globe."  The  shopkeeping  nation,  to 
use  a  shop  word,  has  a  good  stand.  The  old  Ve- 
netians pleased  themselves  with  the  flattery  that 
Venice  was  in  45°,  midway  between  the  poles  and 
the  line ;  as  if  that  were  an  imperial  centrality. 
Long  of  old,  the  Greeks  fancied  Delphi  the  navel 
of  the  earth,  in  their  favorite  mode  of  fabling  the 
earth  to  be  an  animal.  The  Jews  believed  Jerusa- 
lem to  be  the  centre.  I  have  seen  a  kratometric 
chart  designed  to  show  that  the  city  of  Philadelphia 
was  in  the  same  thermic  belt,-  and  by  inference  in 
the  same  belt  of  empire,  as  the  cities  of  Athens, 
Rome  and  London.  It  was  drawn  by  a  patriotic 
Philadelphian,  and  was  examined  with  pleasure, 
under  his  showing,  by  the  inhabitants  of  Chestnut 
Street.  But  when  carried  to  Charleston,  to  New 
Orleans  and  to  Boston,  it  somehow  failed  to  con- 
vince the  ingenious  scholars  of  all  those  capitals. 

But  England  is  anchored  at  the  side  of  Europe, 
and  right  in  the  heart  of  the  modern  world.  The 
sea,  which,  according  to  Virgil's  famous  line,  di- 
vided the  poor  Britons  utterly  from  the  world, 
proved  to  be  the  ring  of  marriage  with  all  nations. 
It  is  not  down  in  the  books,  —  it  is  written  only 
in  the  geologic  strata,  —  that  fortunate  day  when  a 
wave  of  the  German  Ocean  burst  the  old  isthmus 


44  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

which  joined  Kent  and  Cornwall  to  France,  and 
gave  to  this  fragment  of  Europe  its  impregnable 
sea-wall,  cutting  off  an  island  of  eight  hundred 
miles  in  length,  with  an  irregular  breadth  reaching 
to  three  hundred  miles;  a  territory  large  enough 
for  independence,  enriched  with  every  seed  of  na- 
tional power,  so  near  that  it  can  see  the  harvests 
of  the  continent,  and  so  far  that  who  would  cross 
the  strait  must  be  an  expert  mariner,  ready  for 
tempests.  As  America,  Europe  and  Asia  lie,  these 
Britons  have  precisely  the  best  commercial  position 
in  the  whole  planet,  and  are  sure  of  a  market  for 
all  the  goods  they  can  manufacture.  And  to  make 
these  advantages  avail,  the  river  Thames  must  dig 
its  spacious  outlet  to  the  sea  from  the  heart  of  the 
kingdom,  giving  road  and  landing  to  innumerable 
ships,  and  all  the  conveniency  to  trade  that  a  peo- 
ple so  skilful  and  sufficient  in  economizing  water- 
front by  docks,  warehouses  and  lighters  required. 
When  James  the  First  declared  his  purpose  of 
punishing  London  by  removing  his  Court,  the  Lord 
Mayor  replied  that  "  in  removing  his  royal  presence 
from  his  lieges,  they  hoped  he  would  leave  them 
the  Thames." 

In  the  variety  of  surface,  Britain  is  a  miniature 
of  Europe,  having  plain,  forest,  marsh,  river,  sea- 
shore ;  mines  in  Cornwall ;  caves  in  Matlock  and 
Derbyshire;  delicious  landscape  in  Dovedale,  de- 


LAND.  45 

licious  sea- view  at  Tor  Bay,  Highlands  in  Scotland, 
Snowdon  in  Wales,  and  in  Westmoreland  and 
Cumberland  a  pocket  Switzerland,  in  which  the 
lakes  and  mountains  are  on  a  sufficient  scale  to  fill 
the  eye  and  touch  the  imagination.  It  is  a  nation 
conveniently  small.  Fontenelle  thought  that  na- 
ture had  sometimes  a  little  affectation ;  and  there 
is  such  an  artificial  completenesss  in  this  nation  of 
artificers  as  if  there  were  a  design  from  the  begin- 
ning to  elaborate  a  bigger  Birmingham.  Nature 
held  counsel  with  herself  and  said,  '  My  Komans 
are  gone.  To  build  my  new  empire,  I  will  choose  a 
rude  race,  all  masculine,  with  brutish  strength.  I 
will  not  grudge  a  competition  of  the  roughest  males. 
Let  buffalo  gore  buffalo,  and  the  pasture  to  the 
strongest!  For  I  have  work  that  requires  the 
best  will  and  sinew.  Sharp  and  temperate  north- 
ern breezes  shall  blow,  to  keep  that  will  alive  and 
alert.  The  sea  shall  disjoin  the  people  from  others, 
and  knit  them  to  a  fierce  nationality.  It  shall  give 
them  markets  on  every  side.  Long  time  I  will 
keep  them  on  their  feet,  by  poverty,  border-wars, 
seafaring,  sea-risks  and  the  stimulus  of  gain.  An 
island,  —  but  not  so  large,  the  people  not  so  many 
as  to  glut  the  great  markets  and  depress  one  an- 
other, but  proportioned  to  the  size  of  Europe  and 
the  continents.' 

With  its  fruits,  and  wares,  and  money,  must  its 


46  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

civil  influence  radiate.  It  is  a  singular  coinci- 
dence to  this  geographic  centrality,  the  spiritual 
centrality  which  Emanuel  Swedenborg  ascribes  to 
the  people.  "  For  the  English  nation,  the  best  of 
them  are  in  the  centre  of  all  Christians,  because 
they  have  interior  intellectual  light.  This  appears 
conspicuously  in  the  spiritual  world.  This  light 
they  derive  from  the  liberty  of  speaking  and  writing, 
and  thereby  of  thinking." 

. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

EACE. 

AN  ingenious  anatomist  has  written  a  book 1  to 
prove  that  races  are  imperishable,  but  nations  are 
pliant  political  constructions,  easily  changed  or  de- 
stroyed. But  this  writer  did  not  found  his  assumed 
races  on  any  necessary  law,  disclosing  their  ideal 
or  metaphysical  necessity;  nor  did  he  on  the  other 
hand  count  with  precision  the  existing  races  and 
settle  the  true  bounds ;  a  point  of  nicety,  and  the 
popular  test  of  the  theory.  The  individuals  at  the 
extremes  of  divergence  in  one  race  of  men  are  as 
unlike  as  the  wolf  to  the  lapdog.  Yet  each  variety 
shades  down  imperceptibly  into  the  next,  and  you 
cannot  draw  the  line  where  a  race  begins  or  ends. 
Hence  every  writer  makes  a  different  count.  Blu- 
menbach  reckons  five  races ;  Humboldt  three  ;  and 
Mr.  Pickering,  who  lately  in  our  Exploring  Expe- 
dition thinks  he  saw  all  the  kinds  of  men  that  can 
be  on  the  planet,  makes  eleven. 

The  British  Empire  is  reckoned  to  contain  (in 
1848)  222,000,000  souls,— perhaps  a  fifth  of  the 

»  The  Races,  a  Fragment,    By  Robert  Knox.     London:  1850. 


48  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

population  of  the  globe ;  and  to  comprise  a  territory 
of  5,000,000  square  miles.  So  far  have  British 
people  predominated.  Perhaps  forty  of  these  mill- 
ions are  of  British  stock.  Add  the  United  States 
of  America,  which  reckon  (in  the  same  year),  ex- 
clusive of  slaves,  20,000,000  of  people,  on  a  terri- 
tory of  3,000,000  square  miles,  and  in  which  the 
foreign  element,  however  considerable,  is  rapidly 
assimilated,  and  you  have  a  population  of  English 
descent  and  language  of  60,000,000,  and  governing 
a  population  of  245,000,000  souls. 

The  British  census  proper  reckons  twenty-seven 
and  a  half  millions  in  the  home  countries.  What 
makes  this  census  important  is  the  quality  of  the 
units  that  compose  it.  They  are  free  forcible  men, 
in  a  country  where  life  is  safe  and  has  reached  the 
greatest  value.  They  give  the  bias  to  the  current 
age ;  and  that,  not  by  chance  or  by  mass,  but  by 
their  character  and  by  the  number  of  individuals 
among  them  of  personal  ability.  It  has  been  de- 
nied that  the  English  have  genius.  Be  it  as  it 
may,  men  of  vast  intellect  have  been  born  on  their 
soil,  and  they  have  made  or  applied  the  principal 
inventions.  They  have  sound  bodies  and  supreme 
endurance  in  war  and  in  labor.  The  spawning 
force  of  the  race  has  sufficed  to  the  colonization 
of  great  parts  of  the  world ;  yet  it  remains  to  be 
seen  whether  they  can  make  good  the  exodus  of 


RACE.  49 

millions  from  Great  Britain,  amounting  in  1852 
to  more  than  a  thousand  a  day.  They  have  assim- 
ilating force,  since  they  are  imitated  by  their  for- 
eign subjects;  and  they  are  still  aggressive  and 
propagandist,  enlarging  the  dominion  of  their  arts 
and  liberty.  Their  laws  are  hospitable,  and  slav- 
ery does  not  exist  under  them.  What  oppression 
exists  is  incidental  and  temporary ;  their  success  is 
not  sudden  or  fortunate,  but  they  have  maintained 
constancy  and  self-equality  for  many  ages. 

Is  this  power  due  to  their  race,  or  to  some  other 
cause  ?  Men  hear  gladly  of  the  power  of  blood  or 
race.  Every  body  likes  to  know  that  his  advan- 
tages cannot  be  attributed  to  air,  soil,  sea,  or  to 
local  wealth,  as  mines  and  quarries,  nor  to  laws 
and  traditions,  nor  to  fortune ;  but  to  superior  brain, 
as  it  makes  the  praise  more  personal  to  him. 

We  anticipate  in  the  doctrine  of  race  something 
like  that  law  of  physiology  that  whatever  bone, 
muscle,  or  essential  organ  is  found  in  one  healthy 
individual,  the  same  part  or  organ  may  be  found 
in  or  near  the  same  place  in  its  congener  ;  and  we 
look  to  find  in  the  son  every  mental  and  moral 
property  that  existed  in  the  ancestor.  In  race,  it 
is  not  the  broad  shoulders,  or  litheness,  or  stature 
that  give  advantage,  but  a  symmetry  that  reaches 
as  far  as  to  the  wit.  Then  the  miracle  and  renown 
begin.  Then  first  we  care  to  examine  the  pedi- 

VOL.  V.  4 


50  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

gree,  and  copy  heedf ully  the  training,  —  what  food 
they  ate,  what  nursing,  school,  and  exercises  they 
had,  which  resulted  in  this  mother-wit,  delicacy  of 
thought  and  robust  wisdom.  How  came  such  men 
as  King  Alfred,  and  Roger  Bacon,  William  of 
Wykeham,  Walter  Raleigh,  Philip  Sidney,  Isaac 
Newton,  William  Shakspeare,  George  Chapman, 
Francis  Bacon,  George  Herbert,  Henry  Vane,  to 
exist  here  ?  What  made  these  delicate  natures  ? 
was  it  the  air  ?  was  it  the  sea  ?  was  it  the  parent- 
age ?  For  it  is  certain  that  these  men  are  samples 
of  their  contemporaries.  The  hearing  ear  is  al- 
ways found  close  to  the  speaking  tongue,  and  no 
genius  can  long  or  often  utter  any  thing  which  is 
not  invited  and  gladly  entertained  by  men  around 
him. 

It  is  race,  is  it  not  ?  that  puts  the  hundred  mill- 
ions of  India  under  the  dominion  of  a  remote  is- 
land in  the  north  of  Europe.  Race  avails  much, 
if  that  be  true  which  is  alleged,  that  all  Celts  are 
Catholics  and  all  Saxons  are  Protestants;  that 
Celts  love  unity  of  power,  and  Saxons  the  repre- 
sentative principle.  Race  is  a  controlling  influence 
in  the  Jew,  who,  for  two  millenniums,  under  every 
climate,  has  preserved  the  same  character  and  em- 
ployments. Race  in  the  negro  is  of  appalling  im- 
portance. The  French  in  Canada,  cut  off  from  all 
intercourse  with  the  parent  people,  have  held  their 


RACE.  51 

national  traits.  I  chanced  to  read  Tacitus  "  On  the 
Manners  of  the  Germans,"  not  long  since,  in  Mis- 
souri and  the  heart  of  Illinois,  and  I  found  abun- 
dant points  of  resemblance  between  the  Germans 
of  the  Hercynian  forest,  and  our  Hoosiers,  Suckers 
and  Badgers  of  the  American  woods. 

But  whilst  race  works  immortally  to  keep  its 
own,  it  is  resisted  by  other  forces.  Civilization  is 
a  re-agent,  and  eats  away  the  old  traits.  The 
Arabs  of  to-day  are  the  Arabs  of  Pharaoh ;  but  the 
Briton  of  to-day  is  a  very  different  person  from 
Cassibelaunus  or  Ossian.  Each  religious  sect  has 
its  physiognomy.  The  Methodists  have  acquired  a 
face ;  the  Quakers,  a  face  ;  the  nuns,  a  face.  An 
Englishman  will  pick  out  a  dissenter  by  his  man- 
ners. Trades  and  professions  carve  their  own  lines 
on  face  and  form.  Certain  circumstances  of  Eng- 
lish life  are  not  less  effective ;  as  personal  liberty ; 
plenty  of  food ;  good  ale  and  mutton ;  open  mar- 
ket, or  good  wages  for  every  kind  of  labor ;  high 
bribes  to  talent  and  skill ;  the  island  life,  or  the 
million  opportunities  and  outlets  for  expanding  and 
misplaced  talent;  readiness  of  combination  among 
themselves  for  politics  or  for  business ;  strikes ;  and 
sense  of  superiority  founded  on  habit  of  victory  in 
labor  and  in  war:  and  the  appetite  for  superiority 
grows  by  feeding. 

It  is  easy  to  add  to  the  counteracting  forces  to 


52  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

race.  Credence  is  a  main  element.  'T  is  said  that 
the  views  of  nature  held  by  any  people  determine 
all  their  institutions.  Whatever  influences  add  to 
mental  or  moral  faculty,  take  men  out  of  national- 
ity as  out  of  other  conditions,  and  make  the  na- 
tional life  a  culpable  compromise. 

These  limitations  of  the  formidable  doctrine  of 
race  suggest  others  which  threaten  to  undermine  it, 
as  not  sufficiently  based.  The  fixity  or  inconverti- 
bleness  of  races  as  we  see  them  is  a  weak  argument 
for  the  eternity  of  these  frail  boundaries,  since  all 
our  historical  period  is  a  point  to  the  duration  in 
which  nature  has  wrought.  Any  the  least  and  sol- 
itariest  fact  in  our  natural  history,  such  as  the  mel- 
ioration of  fruits  and  of  animal  stocks,  has  the 
worth  of  a  power  in  the  opportunity  of  geologic  pe- 
riods. Moreover,  though  we  flatter  the  self-love  of 
men  and  nations  by  the  legend  of  pure  races,  all 
our  experience  is  of  the  gradation  and  resolution 
of  races,  and  strange  resemblances  meet  us  every- 
where. It  need  not  puzzle  us  that  Malay  and  Pap- 
uan, Celt  and  Roman,  Saxon  and  Tartar  should 
mix,  when  we  see  the  rudiments  of  tiger  and  ba- 
boon in  our  human  form,  and  know  that  the  bar- 
riers of  races  are  not  so  firm  but  that  some  spray 
sprinkles  us  from  the  antediluvian  seas. 

The  low  organizations  are  simplest  ;  a  mere 
mouth,  a  jelly,  or  a  straight  worm.  As  the  scale 


RACE.  53 

mounts,  the  organizations  become  complex.  "We 
are  piqued  with  pure  descent,  but  nature  loves  in- 
oculation. A  child  blends  in  his  face  the  faces  of 
both  parents  and  some  feature  from  every  ancestor 
whose  face  hangs  on  the  wall.  The  best  nations 
are  those  most  widely  related ;  and  navigation,  as 
effecting  a  world-wide  mixture,  is  the  most  potent 
advancer  of  nations. 

The  English  composite  character  betrays  a  mixed 
origin.  Every  thing  English  is  a  fusion  of  distant 
and  antagonistic  elements.  The  language  is  mixed ; 
the  names  of  men  are  of  different  nations,  —  three 
languages,  three  or  four  nations  ;  —  the  currents 
of  thought  are  counter  :  contemplation  and  practi- 
cal skill ;  active  intellect  and  dead  conservatism ; 
world-wide  enterprise  and  devoted  use  and  wont ; 
aggressive  freedom  and  hospitable  law  with  bitter 
class-legislation ;  a  people  scattered  by  their  wars 
and  affairs  over  the  face  of  the  whole  earth,  and 
homesick  to  a  man ;  a  country  of  extremes,  —  dukes 
and  chartists,  Bishops  of  Durham  and  naked  hea- 
then colliers  ;  —  nothing  can  be  praised  in  it  with- 
out damning  exceptions,  and  nothing  denounced 
without  salvos  of  cordial  praise. 

Neither  do  this  people  appear  to  be  of  one  stem, 
but  collectively  a  better  race  than  any  from  which 
they  are  derived.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  trace  it  home 
to  its  original  seats.  Who  can  call  by  right  names 


54  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

what  races  are  in  Britain  ?  Who  can  trace  them 
historically?  Who  can  discriminate  them  anatom- 
ically, or  metaphysically  ? 

In  the  impossibility  of  arriving  at  satisfaction 
on  the  historical  question  of  race,  and  —  come  of 
whatever  disputable  ancestry  —  the  indisputable 
Englishman  before  me,  himself  very  well  marked, 
and  nowhere  else  to  be  found,  —  I  fancied  I  could 
leave  quite  aside  the  choice  of  a  tribe  as  his  lineal 
progenitors.  Defoe  said  in  his  wrath,  "  the  Eng- 
lishman was  the  mud  of  all  races."  I  incline  to 
the  belief  that,  as  water,  lime,  and  sand  make  mor- 
tar, so  certain  temperaments  marry  well,  and,  by 
well -managed  contrarieties,  develop  as  drastic  a 
character  as  the  English.  On  the  whole  it  is  not 
so  much  a  history  of  one  or  of  certain  tribes  of 
Saxons,  Jutes,  or  Frisians,  coming  from  one  place 
and  genetically  identical,  as  it  is  an  anthology  of 
temperaments  out  of  them  all.  Certain  tempera- 
ments suit  the  sky  and  soil  of  England,  say  eight 
or  ten  or  twenty  varieties,  as,  out  of  a  hundred 
pear-trees,  eight  or  ten  suit  the  soil  of  an  orchard 
and  thrive,  —  whilst  all  the  unadapted  tempera- 
ments die  out. 

The  English  derive  their  pedigree  from  such  a 
range  of  nationalities  that  there  needs  sea-room 
and  land-room  to  unfold  the  varieties  of  talent  and 
character.  Perhaps  the  ocean  serves  as  a  galvanic 


RACE.  55 

battery,  to  distribute  acids  at  one  pole  and  alkalies 
at  the  other.  So  England  tends  to  accumulate  her 
liberals  in  America,  and  her  conservatives  at  Lon- 
don. The  Scandinavians  in  her  race  still  hear  in 
every  age  the  murmurs  of  their  mother,  the  ocean  ; 
the  Briton  in  the  blood  hugs  the  homestead  still. 

Again,  as  if  to  intensate  the  influences  that  are 
not  of  race,  what  we  think  of  when  we  talk  of  Eng- 
lish traits  really  narrows  itself  to  a  small  district. 
It  excludes  Ireland  and  Scotland  and  Wales,  and 
reduces  itself  at  last  to  London,  that  is,  to  those 
who  come  and  go  thither.  The  portraits  that  hang 
on  the  walls  in  the  Academy  Exhibition  at  London, 
the  figures  in  Punch's  drawings  of  the  public  men 
or  of  the  club-houses,  the  prints  in  the  shop-win- 
dows, are  distinctive  English,  and  not  American, 
no,  nor  Scotch,  nor  Irish  :  but  'tis  a  very  restricted 
nationality.  As  you  go  north  into  the  manufac- 
turing and  agricultural  districts,  and  to  the  popu- 
lation that  never  travels ;  as  you  go  into  Yorkshire, 
as  you  enter  Scotland,  the  world's  Englishman  is 
no  longer  found.  In  Scotland  there  is  a  rapid 
loss  of  all  grandeur  of  mien  and  manners  ;  a  pro- 
vincial eagerness  and  acuteness  appear;  the  pov- 
erty of  the  country  makes  itself  remarked,  and  a 
coarseness  of  manners ;  and,  among  the  intellectual, 
is  the  insanity  of  dialectics.  In  Ireland  are  the 
same  climate  and  soil  as  in  England,  but  less  food, 


56  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

no  right  relation  to  the  land,  political  dependence, 
small  tenantry  and  an  inferior  or  misplaced  race. 

These  queries  concerning  ancestry  and  blood  may 
be  well  allowed,  for  there  is  no  prosperity  that 
seems  more  to  depend  on  the  kind  of  man  than 
British  prosperity.  Only  a  hardy  and  wise  people 
could  have  made  this  small  territory  great.  We 
say,  in  a  regatta  or  yacht-race,  that  if  the  boats 
are  anywhere  nearly  matched,  it  is  the  man  that 
wins.  Put  the  best  sailing-master  into  either  boat, 
and  he  will  win. 

Yet  it  is  fine  for  us  to  speculate  in  face  of  un- 
broken traditions,  though  vague  and  losing  them- 
selves in  fable.  The  traditions  have  got  footing, 
and  refuse  to  be  disturbed.  The  kitchen-clock  is 
more  convenient  than  sidereal  time.  We  must  use 
the  popular  category,  as  we  do  the  Linnsean  classi- 
fication, for  convenience,  and  not  as  exact  and 
final.  Otherwise  we  are  presently  confounded  when 
the  best-settled  traits  of  one  race  are  claimed  by 
some  new  ethnologist  as  precisely  characteristic  of 
the  rival  tribe. 

I  found  plenty  of  well-marked  English  types,  the 
ruddy  complexion  fair  and  plump,  robust  men,  with 
faces  cut  like  a  die,  and  a  strong  island  speech  and 
accent ;  a  Norman  type,  with  the  complacency  that 
belongs  to  that  constitution.  Others  who  might  be 
Americans,  for  any  thing  that  appeared  in  their 


RACE.  57 

complexion  or  form;  and  their  speech  was  much 
less  marked  and  their  thought  much  less  bound. 
We  will  call  them  Saxons.  Then  the  Roman  has 
implanted  his  dark  complexion  in  the  trinity  or 
quaternity  of  bloods. 

1.  The  sources  from  which  tradition  derives  their 
stock  are  mainly  three.     And  first  they  are  of  the 
oldest  blood  of  the  world,  —  the  Celtic.    Some  peo- 
ples are  deciduous  or  transitory.     Where  are  the 
Greeks  ?     Where  the  Etrurians  ?     Where  the  Ro- 
mans ?    But  the  Celts  or  Sidonides  are  an  old  fam- 
ily, of  whose  beginning  there  is  no  memory,  and 
their  end  is  likely  to  be  still  more  remote  in  the 
future ;  for  they  have  endurance  and  productive- 
ness.    They  planted  Britain,  and  gave  to  the  seas 
and  mountains  names  which  are  poems  and  imitate 
the  pure  voices  of  nature.     They  are  favorably  re- 
membered in  the  oldest  records  of  Europe.     They 
had  no  violent  feudal  tenure,  but  the  husbandman 
owned  the  land.    They  had  an  alphabet,  astronomy, 
priestly  culture  and  a  sublime  creed.     They  have  a 
hidden  and  precarious  genius.    They  made  the  best 
popular  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  songs 
of  Merlin  and  the  tender  and  delicious  mythology 
of  Arthur. 

2.  The  English  come  mainly  from  the  Germans, 
whom  the  Romans  found  hard  to  conquer  in  two 


58  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

hundred  and  ten  years,  —  say  impossible  to  con- 
quer, when  one  remembers  the  long  sequel ;  —  a 
people  about  whom  in  the  old  empire  the  rumor 
ran  there  was  never  any  that  meddled  with  them 
that  repented  it  not. 

3.  Charlemagne,  halting  one  day  in  a  town  of 
Narbonnese  Gaul,  looked  out  of  a  window  and  saw 
a  fleet  of  Northmen  cruising  in  the  Mediterranean. 
They  even  entered  the  port  of  the  town  where  he 
was,  causing  no  small  alarm  and  sudden  manning 
and  arming  of  his  galleys.  As  they  put  out  to  sea 
again,  the  emperor  gazed  long  after  them,  his  eyes 
bathed  in  tears.  "  I  am  tormented  with  sorrow," 
he  said,  "  when  I  foresee  the  evils  they  will  bring 
on  my  posterity."  There  was  reason  for  these 
Xerxes'  tears.  The  men  who  have  built  a  ship  and 
invented  the  rig,  cordage,  sail,  compass  and  pump  ; 
the  working  in  and  out  of  port,  have  acquired  much 
more  than  a  ship.  Now  arm  them  and  every  shore 
is  at  their  mercy.  For  if  they  have  not  numerical 
superiority  where  they  anchor,  they  have  only  to 
sail  a  mile  or  two  to  find  it.  Bonaparte's  art  of 
war,  namely  of  concentrating  force  on  the  point  of 
attack,  must  always  be  theirs  who  have  the  choice 
of  the  battle-ground.  Of  course  they  come  into  the 
fight  from  a  higher  ground  of  power  than  the  land- 
nations  ;  and  can  engage  them  on  shore  with  a  vic- 
torious advantage  in  the  retreat.  As  soon  as  the 


RACE.  59 

shores  are  sufficiently  peopled  to  make  piracy  a  los- 
ing business,  the  same  skill  and  courage  are  ready 
for  the  service  of  trade. 

The  "  Heimskringla,"  l  or  Sagas  of  the  Kings  of 
Norway,  collected  by  Snorro  Sturleson,  is  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  of  English  history.  Its  portraits,  like 
Homer's,  are  strongly  individualized.  The  Sagas 
describe  a  monarchical  republic  like  Sparta.  The 
government  disappears  before  the  importance  of  cit- 
izens. In  Norway,  no  Persian  masses  fight  and  per- 
ish to  aggrandize  a  king,  but  the  actors  are  bonders 
or  landholders,  every  one  of  whom  is  named  and 
personally  and  patronymically  described,  as  the 
king's  friend  and  companion.  A  sparse  population 
gives  this  high  worth  to  every  man.  Individuals 
are  often  noticed  as  very  handsome  persons,  which 
trait  only  brings  the  story  nearer  to  the  English 
race.  Then  the  solid  material  interest  predomi- 
nates, so  dear  to  English  understanding,  wherein 
the  association  is  logical,  between  merit  and  land. 
The  heroes  of  the  Sagas  are  not  the  knights  of 
South  Europe.  No  vaporing  of  France  and  Spain 
has  corrupted  them.  They  are  substantial  farmers 
whom  the  rough  times  have  forced  to  defend  their 
properties.  They  have  weapons  which  they  use  in 
a  determined  manner,  by  no  means  for  chivalry, 

1  Heimskringla.  Translated  by  Samuel  Laing,  Esq.  Lon- 
don :  1844. 


60  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

but  for  their  acres.  They  are  people  considerably 
advanced  in  rural  arts,  living  amphibiously  on  a 
rough  coast,  and  drawing  half  their  food  from  the 
sea  and  half  from  the  land.  They  have  herds  of 
cows,  and  malt,  wheat,  bacon,  butter,  and  cheese. 
They  fish  in  the  fiord  and  hunt  the  deer.  A  king 
among  these  farmers  has  a  varying  power,  some- 
tunes  not  exceeding  the  authority  of  a  sheriff.  A 
king  was  maintained,  much  as  in  some  of  our  coun- 
try districts  a  winter-schoolmaster  is  quartered,  a 
week  here,  a  week  there,  and  a  fortnight  on  the 
next  farm,  —  on  all  the  farms  in  rotation.  This 
the  king  calls  going  into  guest-quarters ;  and  it  was 
the  only  way  in  which,  in  a  poor  country,  a  poor 
king  with  many  retainers  could  be  kept  alive  when 
he  leaves  his  own  farm  to  collect  his  dues  through 
the  kingdom. 

These  Norsemen  are  excellent  persons  in  the 
main,  with  good  sense,  steadiness,  wise  speech  and 
prompt  action.  But  they  have  a  singular  turn  for 
homicide ;  their  chief  end  of  man  is  to  murder  or 
to  be  murdered ;  oars,  scythes,  harpoons,  crowbars, 
peatknives  and  hayforks  are  tools  valued  by  them 
all  the  more  for  their  charming  aptitude  for  assas- 
sinations. A  pair  of  kings,  after  dinner,  will  di- 
vert themselves  by  thrusting  each  his  sword  through 
the  other's  body,  as  did  Yngve  and  Alf .  Another 
pair  ride  out  on  a  morning  for  a  frolic,  and  finding 


RACE.  61 

no  weapon  near,  will  take  the  bits  out  of  their 
horses'  mouths  and  crush  each  other's  heads  with 
them,  as  did  Alric  and  Eric.  The  sight  of  a  tent- 
cord  or  a  cloak-string  puts  them  on  hanging  some- 
body, a  wife,  or  a  husband,  or,  best  of  all,  a  king., 
If  a  farmer  has  so  much  as  a  hayfork,  he  sticks  it 
into  a  King  Dag.  King  Ingiald  finds  it  vastly 
amusing  to  burn  up  half  a  dozen  kings  in  a  hall, 
after  getting  them  drunk.  Never  was  poor  gentle- 
man so  surfeited  with  life,  so  furious  to  be  rid  of  it, 
as  the  Northman.  If  he  cannot  pick  any  other 
quarrel,  he  will  get  himself  comfortably  gored  by  a 
bull's  horns,  like  Egil,  or  slain  by  a  land-slide,  like 
the  agricultural  King  Onund.  Odin  died  in  his 
bed,  in  Sweden ;  but  it  was  a  proverb  of  ill  con- 
dition to  die  the  death  of  old  age.  King  Hake  of 
Sweden  cuts  and  slashes  in  battle,  as  long  as  he 
can  stand,  then  orders  his  war-ship,  loaded  with  his 
dead  men  and  their  weapons,  to  be  taken  out  to  sea, 
the  tiller  shipped  and  the  sails  spread ;  being  left 
alone  he  sets  fire  to  some  tar-wood  and  lies  down 
contented  on  deck.  The  wind  blew  off  the  land, 
the  ship  flew,  burning  in  clear  flame,  out  between 
the  islets  into  the  ocean,  and  there  was  the  right 
end  of  King  Hake. 

The  early  Sagas  are  sanguinary  and  piratical ; 
the  later  are  of  a  noble  strain.  History  rarely 
yields  us  better  passages  than  the  conversation  be- 


62  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

tween  King  Sigurd  the  Crusader  and  King  Eystein 
his  brother,  on  their  respective  merits,  —  one  the 
soldier,  and  the  other  a  lover  of  the  arts  of  peace. 

But  the  reader  of  the  Norman  history  must  steel 
himself  by  holding  fast  the  remote  compensations 
which  result  from  animal  vigor.  As  the  old  fossil 
world  shows  that  the  first  steps  of  reducing  the 
chaos  were  confided  to  saurians  and  other  huge  and 
horrible  animals,  so  the  foundations  of  the  new 
civility  were  to  be  laid  by  the  most  savage  men. 

The  Normans  came  out  of  France  into  England 
worse  men  than  they  went  into  it  one  hundred  and 
sixty  years  before.  They  had  lost  their  own  lan- 
guage and  learned  the  Romance  or  barbarous  Latin 
of  the  Gauls,  and  had  acquired,  with  the  language, 
all  the  vices  it  had  names  for.  The  conquest  has 
obtained  in  the  chronicles  the  name  of  the  "  mem- 
ory of  sorrow."  Twenty  thousand  thieves  landed 
at  Hastings.  These  founders  of  the  House  of  Lords 
were  greedy  and  ferocious  dragoons,  sons  of  greedy 
and  ferocious  pirates.  They  were  all  alike,  they 
took  everything  they  could  carry,  they  burned,  har* 
ried,  violated,  tortured  and  killed,  until  every  thing 
English  was  brought  to  the  verge  of  ruin.  Such 
however  is  the  illusion  of  antiquity  and  wealth,  that 
decent  and  dignified  men  now  existing  boast  their 
descent  from  these  filthy  thieves,  who  showed  a  far 
juster  conviction  of  their  own  merits,  by  assum/ 


RACE.  63 

ing  for  their  types  the  swine,  goat,  jackal,  leopard, 
wolf  and  snake,  which  they  severally  resembled. 

England  yielded  to  the  Danes  and  Northmen  in 
the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  and  was  the  re- 
ceptacle into  which  all  the  mettle  of  that  strenuous 
population  was  poured.  The  continued  draught  of 
the  best  men  in  Norway,  Sweden  and  Denmark  to 
these  piratical  expeditions  exhausted  those  countries, 
like  a  tree  which  bears  much  fruit  when  young, 
and  these  have  been  second-rate  powers  ever  since. 
The  power  of  the  race  migrated  and  left  Norway 
void.  King  Olaf  said  "  When  King  Harold,  my 
father,  went  westward  to  England,  the  chosen  men 
in  Norway  followed  him ;  but  Norway  was  so 
emptied  then,  that  such  men  have  not  since  been  to 
find  in  the  country,  nor  especially  such  a  leader  as 
King  Harold  was  for  wisdom  and  bravery." 

It  was  a  tardy  recoil  of  these  invasions,  when, 
in  1801,  the  British  government  sent  Nelson  to 
bombard  the  Danish  forts  in  the  Sound,  and,  in 
1807,  Lord  Cathcart,  at  Copenhagen,  took  the  en- 
tire Danish  fleet,  as  it  lay  in  the  basins,  and  all  the 
equipments  from  the  Arsenal,  and  carried  them  to 
England.  Konghelle,  the  town  where  the  kings  of 
Norway,  Sweden  and  Denmark  were  wont  to  meet, 
is  now  rented  to  a  private  English  gentleman  for 
a  hunting  ground. 

It  took  many  generations  to  trim  and  comb  and 


64  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

perfume  the  first  boat-load  of  Norse  pirates  into 
royal  highnesses  and  most  noble  Knights  of  the 
Garter ;  but  every  sparkle  of  ornament  dates  back 
to  the  Norse  boat.  There  will  be  time  enough  to 
mellow  this  strength  into  civility  and  religion.  It 
is  a  medical  fact  that  the  children  of  the  blind  see ; 
the  children  of  felons  have  a  healthy  conscience. 
Many  a  mean,  dastardly  boy  is,  at  the  age  of  pu- 
berty, transformed  into  a  serious  and  generous 
youth. 

The  mildness  of  the  following  ages  has  not  quite 
effaced  these  traits  of  Odin ;  as  the  rudiment  of  a 
structure  matured  in  the  tiger  is  said  to  be  still 
found  unabsorbed  in  the  Caucasian  man.  The  na- 
tion has  a  tough,  acrid,  animal  nature,  which  cen- 
turies of  churching  and  civilizing  have  not  been 
able  to  sweeten.  Alfieri  said  "  the  crimes  of  Italy 
were  the  proof  of  the  superiority  of  the  stock ; " 
and  one  may  say  of  England  that  this  watch  moves 
on  a  splinter  of  adamant.  The  English  uncultured 
are  a  brutal  nation.  The  crimes  recorded  in  their 
calendars  leave  nothing  to  be  desired  in  the  way  of 
cold  malignity.  Dear  to  the  English  heart  is  a 
fair  stand-up  fight.  The  brutality  of  the  manners 
in  the  lower  class  appears  in  the  boxing,  bear-bait- 
ing, cock-fighting,  love  of  executions,  and  in  the 
readiness  for  a  set-to  in  the  streets,  delightful  to 
the  English  of  all  classes.  The  costermongers  of 


RACE.  65 

London  streets  hold  cowardice  in  loathing :  —  "we 
must  work  our  fists  well ;  we  are  all  handy  with 
our  fists."  The  public  schools  are  charged  with 
being  bear-gardens  of  brutal  strength,  and  are 
liked  by  the  people  for  that  cause.  The  fagging  is 
a  trait  of  the  same  quality.  Medwin,  in  the  Life 
of  Shelley,  relates  that  at  a  military  school  they 
rolled  up  a  young  man  in  a  snowball,  and  left 
him  so  in  his  room  while  the  other  cadets  went  to 
church  ;  —  and  crippled  him  for  life.  They  have 
retained  impressment,  deck-flogging,  army-flogging 
and  school-flogging.  Such  is  the  ferocity  of  the 
army  discipline  that  a  soldier,  sentenced  to  flog- 
ging, sometimes  prays  that  his  sentence  may  be 
commuted  to  death.  Flogging,  banished  from  the 
armies  of  Western  Europe,  remains  here  by  the 
sanction  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  The  right  of 
the  husband  to  sell  the  wife  has  been  retained  down 
to  our  times.  The  Jews  have  been  the  favorite 
victims  of  royal  and  popular  persecution.  Henry 
III.  mortgaged  all  the  Jews  in  the  kingdom  to  his 
brother  the  Earl  of  Cornwall,  as  security  for  money 
which  he  borrowed.  The  torture  of  criminals,  and 
the  rack  for  extorting  evidence,  were  slowly  dis- 
used. Of  the  criminal  statutes,  Sir  Samuel  Kom- 
illy  said  "  I  have  examined  the  codes  of  all  na- 
tions, and  ours  is  the  worst,  and  worthy  of  the 
Anthropophagi."  In  the  last  session  (1848),  the 


66  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

House  of  Commons  was  listening  to  the  details  of 
flogging  and  torture  practised  in  the  jails. 

As  soon  as  this  land,  thus  geographically  posted, 
got  a  hardy  people  into  it,  they  could  not  help  be- 
coming the  sailors  and  factors  of  the  globe.  From 
childhood,  they  dabbled  in  water,  they  swam  like 
fishes,  their  playthings  were  boats.  In  the  case  of 
the  ship-money,  the  judges  delivered  it  for  law, 
that  "  England  being  an  island,  the  very  midland 
shires  therein  are  all  to  be  accounted  maritime  ;  " 
and  Fuller  adds,  "the  genius  even  of  landlocked 
counties  driving  the  natives  with  a  maritime  dex- 
terity." As  early  as  the  conquest  it  is  remarked, 
in  explanation  of  the  wealth  of  England,  that  its 
merchants  trade  to  all  countries. 

The  English  at  the  present  day  have  great  vigor- 
of  body  and  endurance.  Other  countrymen  look 
slight  and  undersized  beside  them,  and  invalids. 
They  are  bigger  men  than  the  Americans.  I  sup- 
pose a  hundred  English  taken  at  random  out  of 
the  street  would  weigh  a  fourth  more  than  so  many 
Americans.  Yet,  I  am  told,  the  skeleton  is  not 
larger.  They  are  round,  ruddy,  and  handsome  ;  at 
least  the  whole  bust  is  well  formed,  and  there  is 
a  tendency  to  stout  and  powerful  frames.  I  re- 
marked the  stoutness  on  my  first  landing  at  Liver- 
pool ;  porter,  drayman,  coachman,  guard,  —  what 
substantial,  respectable,  grandfatherly  figures,  with 


RACE.  67 

costume  and  manners  to  suit.  The  American  has 
arrived  at  the  old  mansion-house  and  finds  himself 
among  uncles,  aunts  and  grandsires.  The  pictures 
on  the  chimney-tiles  of  his  nursery  were  pictures  of 
these  people.  Here  they  are  in  the  identical  cos- 
tumes and  air  which  so  took  him. 

It  is  the  fault  of  their  forms  that  they  grow 
stocky,  and  the  women  have  that  disadvantage,  — 
few  tall,  slender  figures  of  flowing  shape,  but 
stunted  and  thickset  persons.  The  French  say 
that  the  Englishwomen  have  two  left  hands.  But 
in  all  ages  they  are  a  handsome  race.  The  bronze 
monuments  of  crusaders  lying  cross-legged  in  the 
Temple  Church  at  London,  and  those  in  Worces- 
ter and  in  Salisbury  Cathedrals,  which  are  seven 
hundred  years  old,  are  of  the  same  type  as  the  best 
youthful  heads  of  men  now  in  England  ;  —  please 
by  beauty  of  the  same  character,  an  expression 
blending  goodnature,  valor  and  refinement,  and 
mainly  by  that  uncorrupt  youth  in  the  face  of  man- 
hood, which  is  daily  seen  in  the  streets  of  London. 

Both  branches  of  the  Scandinavian  race  are  dis- 
tinguished for  beauty.  The  anecdote  of  the  hand- 
some captives  which  Saint  Gregory  found  at  Rome, 
A.  D.  600,  is  matched  by  the  testimony  of  the 
Norman  chroniclers,  five  centuries  later,  who  won- 
dered at  the  beauty  and  long  flowing  hair  of  the 
young  English  captives.  Meantime  the  "Heims- 


68  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

kringla  "  has  frequent  occasion  to  speak  of  the  per- 
sonal beauty  of  its  heroes.  When  it  is  considered 
what  humanity,  what  resources  of  mental  and  moral 
power  the  traits  of  the  blonde  race  betoken,  its 
accession  to  empire  marks  a  new  and  finer  epoch, 
wherein  the  old  mineral  force  shall  be  subjugated 
at  last  by  humanity  and  shall  plough  in  its  furrow 
henceforward.  It  is  not  a  final  race,  once  a  crab 
always  crab,  —  but  a  race  with  a  future. 

On  the  English  face  are  combined  decision  and 
nerve  with  the  fair  complexion,  blue  eyes  and  open 
and  florid  aspect.  Hence  the  love  of  truth,  hence 
the  sensibility,  the  fine  perception  and  poetic  con- 
struction. The  fair  Saxon  man,  with  open  front 
and  honest  meaning,  domestic,  affectionate,  is  not 
the  wood  out  of  which  cannibal,  or  inquisitor,  or 
assassin  is  made,  but  he  is  moulded  for  law,  law- 
ful trade,  civility,  marriage,  the  nurture  of  chil- 
dren, for  colleges,  churches,  charities  and  colonies. 

They  are  rather  manly  than  warlike.  When  the 
war  is  over,  the  mask  falls  from  the  affectionate 
and  domestic  tastes,  which  make  them  women  in 
kindness.  This  union  of  qualities  is  fabled  in  their 
national  legend  of  "Beauty  and  the  Beast,"  or, 
long  before,  in  the  Greek  legend  of  Hermaphrodite. 
The  two  sexes  are  co-present  in  the  English  mind. 
I  apply  to  Britannia,  queen  of  seas  and  colonies, 
the  words  in  which  her  latest  novelist  portrays  his 


RACE.  69 

heroine ;  "  She  is  as  mild  as  she  is  game,  and  as 
game  as  she  is  mild."  The  English  delight  in  the 
antagonism  which  combines  in  one  person  the  ex- 
tremes of  courage  and  tenderness.  Nelson,  dying 
at  Trafalgar,  sends  his  love  to  Lord  Collingwood, 
and  like  an  innocent  schoolboy  that  goes  to  bed, 
says  "  Kiss  me,  Hardy,"  and  turns  to  sleep.  Lord 
Collingwood,  his  comrade,  was  of  a  nature  the  most 
affectionate  and  domestic.  Admiral  Rodney's  fig- 
ure approached  to  delicacy  and  effeminacy,  and  he 
declared  himself  very  sensible  to  fear,  which  he 
surmounted  only  by  considerations  of  honor  and 
public  duty.  Clarendon  says  the  Duke  of  Buck- 
ingham was  so  modest  and  gentle,  that  some  cour- 
tiers attempted  to  put  affronts  on  him,  until  they 
found  that  this  modesty  and  effeminacy  was  only 
a  mask  for  the  most  terrible  determination.  And 
Sir  Edward  Parry  said  of  Sir  John  Franklin,  that 
"  if  he  found  Wellington  Sound  open,  he  explored 
it ;  for  he  was  a  man  who  never  turned  his  back 
on  a  danger,  yet  of  that  tenderness  that  he  would 
not  brush  away  a  mosquito."  Even  for  their  high- 
waymen the  same  virtue  is  claimed,  and  Robin 
Hood  comes  described  to  us  as  mitissimus  prcedo- 
num ;  the  gentlest  thief.  But  they  know  where 
their  war-dogs  lie.  Cromwell,  Blake,  Marlborough, 
Chatham,  Nelson  and  Wellington  are  not  to  be 
trifled  with,  and  the  brutal  strength  which  lies  at 


70  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  bottom  of  society,  the  animal  ferocity  of  the 
quays  and  cockpits,  the  bullies  of  the  costermon- 
gers  of  Shoreditch,  Seven  Dials  and  Spitalfields, 
they  know  how  to  wake  up. 

They  have  a  vigorous  health  and  last  well  into 
middle  and  old  age.  The  old  men  are  as  red  as 
roses,  and  still  handsome.  A  clear  skin,  a  peach- 
bloom  complexion  and  good  teeth  are  found  all 
over  the  island.  They  use  a  plentiful  and  nutri- 
tious diet.  The  operative  cannot  subsist  on  water- 
cresses.  Beef,  mutton,  wheat-bread  and  malt-liq- 
uors are  universal  among  the  first-class  laborers. 
Good  feeding  is  a  chief  point  of  national  pride 
among  the  vulgar,  and  in  their  caricatures  they 
represent  the  Frenchman  as  a  poor,  starved  body. 
It  is  curious  that  Tacitus  found  the  English  beer 
already  in  use  among  the  Germans :  "  They  make 
from  barley  or  wheat  a  drink  corrupted  into  some 
resemblance  to  wine."  Lord  Chief  Justice  For- 
tescue,  in  Henry  VI.'s  time,  says  "  The  inhabitants 
of  England  drink  no  water,  unless  at  certain  times 
on  a  religious  score  and  by  way  of  penance."  The 
extremes  of  poverty  and  ascetic  penance,  it  would 
seem,  never  reach  cold  water  in  England.  T^ood 
the  antiquary,  in  describing  the  poverty  and  mac- 
eration of  Father  Lacey,  an  English  Jesuit,  doea 
not  deny  him  beer.  He  says  "  His  bed  was  under 
a  thatching,  and  the  way  to  it  up  a  ladder ;  his 


RACE.  71 

fare  was  coarse  ;  his  drink,  of  a  penny  a  gawn,  or 
gallon." 

They  have  more  constitutional  energy  than  any 
other  people.  They  think,  with  Henri  Quatre, 
that  manly  exercises  are  the  foundation  of  that  ele- 
vation of  mind  which  gives  one  nature  ascendant 
over  another ;  or  with  the  Arabs,  that  the  days 
spent  in  the  chase  are  not  counted  in  the  length 
of  life.  They  box,  run,  shoot,  ride,  row,  and  sail 
from  pole  to  pole.  They  eat  and  drink,  and  live 
jolly  in  the  open  air,  putting  a  bar  of  solid  sleep 
between  day  and  day.  They  walk  and  ride  as  fast 
as  they  can,  their  head  bent  forward,  as  if  urged 
on  some  pressing  affair.  The  French  say  that 
Englishmen  in  the  street  always  walk  straight  be-, 
fore  them  like  mad  dogs.  Men  and  women  walk 
with  infatuation.  As  soon  as  he  can  handle  a  gun, 
hunting  is  the  fine  art  of  every  Englishman  of  con- 
dition. They  are  the  most  voracious  people  of  prey 
that  ever  existed.  Every  season  turns  out  the  aris- 
tocracy into  the  country  to  shoot  and  fish.  The 
more  vigorous  run  out  of  the  island  to  America,  to 
Asia,  to  Africa  and  Australia,  to  hunt  with  fury 
by  gun,  by  trap,  by  harpoon,  by  lasso,  with  dog, 
with  horse,  with  elephant  or  with  dromedary,  all 
the  game  that  is  in  nature.  These  men  have  writ- 
ten the  game-books  of  all  countries,  as  Hawker, 
Scrope,  Murray,  Herbert,  Maxwell,  Gumming  and 


72  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

a  host  of  travellers.  The  people  at  home  are  ad- 
dicted to  boxing,  running,  leaping  and  rowing 
matches. 

I  suppose  the  dogs  and  horses  must  be  thanked 
for  the  fact  that  the  men  have  muscles  almost  as 
tough  and  supple  as  their  own.  If  in  every  effi- 
cient man  there  is  first  a  fine  animal,  in  the  Eng- 
Vish  race  it  is  of  the  best  breed,  a  wealthy,  juicy, 
broad-chested  creature,  steeped  in  ale  and  good 
fcheer  and  a  little  overloaded  by  his  flesh.  Men  of 
animal  nature  rely,  like  animals,  on  their  instincts. 
The  Englishman  associates  well  with  dogs  and 
horses.  His  attachment  to  the  horse  arises  from 
the  courage  and  address  required  to  manage  it. 
The  horse  finds  out  who  is  afraid  of  it,  and  does 
not  disguise  its  opinion.  Their  young  boiling 
clerks  and  lusty  collegians  like  the  company  of 
horses  better  than  the  company  of  professors.  I 
suppose  the  horses  are  better  company  for  them. 
The  horse  has  more  uses  than  Buffon  noted.  If 
you  go  into  the  streets,  every  driver  in  'bus  or  dray 
is  a  bully,  and  if  I  wanted  a  good  troop  of  soldiers, 
I  should  recruit  among  the  stables.  Add  a  certain 
degree  of  refinement  to  the  vivacity  of  these  riders, 
and  you  obtain  the  precise  quality  which  makes  the 
men  and  women  of  polite  society  formidable. 

They  come  honestly  by  their  horsemanship,  with 
Hengst  and  Horsa  for  their  Saxon  founders.  The 


RACE.  73 

other  branch  of  their  race  had  been  Tartar  nomads. 
The  horse  was  all  their  wealth.  The  children  were 
fed  on  mares'  milk.  The  pastures  of  Tartary  were 
still  remembered  by  the  tenacious  practice  of  the 
Norsemen  to  eat  horseflesh  at  religious  feasts.  In 
the  Danish  invasions  the  marauders  seized  upon 
horses  where  they  landed,  and  were  at  once  con- 
verted into  a  body  of  expert  cavalry. 

At  one  time  this  skill  seems  to  have  declined. 
Two  centuries  ago  the  English  horse  never  per- 
formed any  eminent  service  beyond  the  seas  ;  and 
the  reason  assigned  was  that  the  genius  of  the  Eng- 
lish hath  always  more  inclined  them  to  foot-service, 
as  pure  and  proper  manhood,  without  any  mixture  ; 
whilst  in  a  victory  on  horseback,  the  credit  ought 
to  be  divided  betwixt  the  man  and  his  horse.  But 
in  two  hundred  years  a  change  has  taken  place. 
Now,  they  boast  that  they  understand  horses  bet- 
ter than  any  other  people  in  the  world,  and  that 
their  horses  are  become  their  second  selves. 

"  William  the  Conqueror  being,"  says  Camden, 
"  better  affected  to  beasts  than  to  men,  imposed 
heavy  fines  and  punishments  on  those  that  should 
meddle  with  his  game."  The  Saxon  Chronicle 
says  "  he  loved  the  tall  deer  as  if  he  were  their 
father."  And  rich  Englishmen  have  followed  his 
example,  according  to  their  ability,  ever  since,  in 
encroaching  on  the  tillage  and  commons  with  their 


74  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

game-preserves.  It  is  a  proverb  in  England  that 
it  is  safer  to  shoot  a  man  than  a  hare.  The  sever- 
ity of  the  game-laws  certainly  indicates  an  extrav- 
agant sympathy  of  the  nation  with  horses  and  hunt- 
ers. The  gentlemen  are  always  on  horseback,  and 
have  brought  horses  to  an  ideal  perfection ;  the 
English  racer  is  a  factitious  breed.  A  score  or 
two  of  mounted  gentlemen  may  frequently  be  seen 
running  like  centaurs  down  a  hill  nearly  as  steep 
as  the  roof  of  a  house.  Every  inn-room  is  lined 
with  pictures  of  races ;  telegraphs  communicate, 
every  hour,  tidings  of  the  heats  from  Newmarket 
and  Ascot ;  and  the  House  of  Commons  adjourns 
over  the  "  Derby  Day." 


CHAPTER  V. 

ABILITY. 

THE  Saxon  and  the  Northman  are  both  Scandi- 
navians. History  does  not  allow  us  to  fix  the 
limits  of  the  application  of  these  names  with  any 
accuracy,  but  from  the  residence  of  a  portion  of 
these  people  in  France,  and  from  some  effect  of 
that  powerful  soil  on  their  blood  and  manners,  the 
Norman  has  come  popularly  to  represent  in  Eng- 
land the  aristocratic,  and  the  Saxon  the  democratic 
principle.  And  though,  I  doubt  not,  the  nobles 
are  of  both  tribes,  and  the  workers  of  both,  yet 
we  are  forced  to  use  the  names  a  little  mythically, 
one  to  represent  the  worker  and  the  other  the  en- 
joyer. 

The  island  was  a  prize  for  the  best  race.  Each 
of  the  dominant  races  tried  its  fortune  in  turn. 
The  Pho3nician,  the  Celt  and  the  Goth  had  already 
got  in.  The  Roman  came,  but  in  the  very  day 
when  his  fortune  culminated.  He  looked  in  the 
eyes  of  a  new  people  that  was  to  supplant  his  own. 
He  disembarked  his  legions,  erected  his  camps 
and  towers,  — presently  he  heard  bad  news  from 


76  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Italy,  and  worse  and  worse,  every  year ;  at  last,  he 
made  a  handsome  compliment  of  roads  and  walls, 
and  departed.  But  the  Saxon  seriously  settled  in 
the  land,  builded,  tilled,  fished  and  traded,  with 
German  truth  and  adhesiveness.  The  Dane  came 
and  divided  with  him.  Last  of  all  the  Norman  or 
French-Dane  arrived,  and  formally  conquered, 
harried  and  ruled  the  kingdom.  A  century  later 
it  came  out  that  the  Saxon  had  the  most  bottom 
and  longevity,  had  managed  to  make  the  victor 
speak  the  language  and  accept  the  law  and  usage 
of  the  victim ;  forced  the  baron  to  dictate  Saxon 
terms  to  Norman  kings ;  and,  step  by  step,  got  all 
the  essential  securities  of  civil  liberty  invented  and 
confirmed.  The  genius  of  the  race  and  the  genius 
of  the  place  conspired  to  this  effect.  The  island 
is  lucrative  to  free  labor,  but  not  worth  possession 
on  other  terms.  The  race  was  so  intellectual  that 
a  feudal  or  military  tenure  could  not  last  longer 
than  the  war.  The  power  of  the  Saxon -Danes, 
so  thoroughly  beaten  in  the  war  that  the  name  of 
English  and  villein  were  synonymous,  yet  so  viva- 
cious as  to  extort  charters  from  the  kings,  stood 
on  the  strong  personality  of  these  people.  Sense 
and  economy  must  rule  in  a  world  which  is  made 
of  sense  and  economy,  and  the  banker,  with  his 
seven  per  cent.,  drives  the  earl  out  of  his  castle. 
A  nobility  of  soldiers  cannot  keep  down  a  com- 


ABILITY.  77 

monalty  of  shrewd  scientific  persons.  What  signi- 
fies a  pedigree  of  a  hundred  links,  against  a  cotton- 
spinner  with  steam  in  his  mill ;  or  against  a 
company  of  broad-shouldered  Liverpool  merchants, 
for  whom  Stephenson  and  Brunei  are  contriving 
locomotives  and  a  tubular  bridge? 

These  Saxons  are  the  hands  of  mankind.  They 
have  the  taste  for  toil,  a  distaste  for  pleasure  or 
repose,  and  the  telescopic  appreciation  of  distant 
gain.  They  are  the  wealth-makers,  —  and  by  dint 
of  mental  faculty  which  has  its  own  conditions. 
The  Saxon  works  after  liking,  or  only  for  himself ; 
and  to  set  him  at  work  and  to  begin  to  draw  his 
monstrous  values  out  of  barren  Britain,  all  dis- 
honor, fret  and  barrier  must  be  removed,  and  then 
his  energies  begin  to  play. 

The  Scandinavian  fancied  himself  surrounded  by 
Trolls,  —  a  kind  of  goblin  men  with  vast  power 
of  work  and  skilful  production,  —  divine  steve- 
dores, carpenters,  reapers,  smiths  and  masons,  swift 
to  reward  every  kindness  done  them,  with  gifts  of 
gold  and  silver.  In  all  English  history  this  dream 
comes  to  pass.  Certain  Trolls  or  working  brains, 
under  the  names  of  Alfred,  Bede,  Caxton,  Bracton, 
Camden,  Drake,  Selden,  Dugdale,  Newton,  Gibbon, 
Brindley,  Watt,  Wedgwood,  dwell  in  the  troll- 
mounts  of  Britain  and  turn  the  sweat  of  their 
face  to  power  and  renown. 


78  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

If  the  race  is  good,  so  is  the  place.  Nobody 
landed  on  this  spellbound  island  with  impunity. 
The  enchantments  of  barren  shingle  and  rough 
weather  transformed  every  adventurer  into  a  la- 
borer. Each  vagabond  that  arrived  bent  his  neck 
to  the  yoke  of  gain,  or  found  the  air  too  tense  for 
him.  The  strong  survived,  the  weaker  went  to  the 
ground.  Even  the  pleasure -hunters  and  sots  of 
England  are  of  a  tougher  texture.  A  hard  tem- 
perament had  been  formed  by  Saxon  and  Saxon- 
Dane,  and  such  of  these  French  or  Normans  as 
could  reach  it  were  naturalized  in  every  sense. 

All  the  admirable  expedients  or  means  hit  upon 
in  England  must  be  looked  at  as  growths  or  ir- 
resistible offshoots  of  the  expanding  mind  of  the 
race.  A  man  of  that  brain  thinks  and  acts  thus ; 
and  his  neighbor,  being  afflicted  with  the  same 
kind  of  brain,  though  he  is  rich  and  called  a  baron 
or  a  duke,  thinks  the  same  thing,  and  is  ready  to 
allow  the  justice  of  the  thought  and  act  in  his 
retainer  or  tenant,  though  sorely  against  his  baro- 
nial or  ducal  will. 

The  island  was  renowned  in  antiquity  for  its 
breed  of  mastiffs,  so  fierce  that  when  their  teeth 
were  set  you  must  cut  their  heads  off  to  part  them. 
The  man  was  like  his  dog.  The  people  have  that 
nervous  bilious  temperament  which  is  known  by 
medical  men  to  resist  every  means  employed  to 


ABILITY.  79 

make  its  possessor  subservient  to  the  will  of  others. 
The  English  game  is  main  force  to  main  force,  the 
planting  of  foot  to  foot,  fair  play  and  open  field, 

—  a  rough  tug  witjiout  trick  or  dodging,  till  one 
or  both  come  to  pieces.      King  Ethelwald  spoke 
the  language  of  his  race  when  he  planted  himself 
at  Wimborne  and  said  he  "  would  do  one  of  two 
tilings,  or  there  live,   or   there  lie."      They  hate 
craft  and  subtlety.     They  neither  poison,  nor  way- 
lay, nor  assassinate ;  and  when  they  have  pounded 
each  other  to  a  poultice,  they  will  shake  hands  and 
be  friends  for  the  remainder  of  their  lives. 

You  shall  trace  these  Gothic  touches  at  school, 
at  country  fairs,  at  the  hustings  and  in  parliament. 
No  artifice,  no  breach  of  truth  and  plain  dealing, 

—  not  so  much  as  secret  ballot,  is  suffered  in  the 
island.    In  parliament,  the  tactics  of  the  opposition 
is  to  resist  every  step  of  the  government  by  a  piti- 
less attack:  and  in  a  bargain,  no  prospect  of  ad- 
vantage is  so  dear  to  the  merchant  as  the  thought 
of  being  tricked  is  mortifying. 

Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  a  courtier  of  Charles  and 
James,  who  won  the  sea-fight  of  Scanderoon,  was 
a  model  Englishman  in  his  day.  "  His  person  was 
handsome  and  gigantic,  he  had  so  graceful  elocu- 
tion and  noble  address,  that,  had  he  been  dropt  out 
of  the  clouds  in  any  part  of  the  world,  he  would 
have  made  himself  respected:  he  was  skilled  in 


80  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

six  tongues,  and  master  of  arts  and  arms."  1  Sir 
Kenelm  wrote  a  book,  "  Of  Bodies  and  of  Souls," 
in  which  he  propounds,  that  "  syllogisms  do  breed 
or  rather  are  all  the  variety  of  man's  life.  They 
are  the  steps  by  which  we  walk  in  all  our  busi- 
nesses. Man,  as  he  is  man,  doth  nothing  else  but 
weave  such  chains.  Whatsoever  he  doth,  swarving 
from  this  work,  he  doth  as  deficient  from  the  na- 
ture of  man :  and,  if  he  do  aught  beyond  this,  by 
breaking  out  into  divers  sorts  of  exterior  actions, 
he  findeth,  nevertheless,  in  this  linked  sequel  of 
simple  discourses,  the  art,  the  cause,  the  rule,  the 
bounds  and  the  model  of  it."  2 

There  spoke  the  genius  of  the  English  people. 
There  is  a  necessity  on  them  to  be  logical.  They 
would  hardly  greet  the  good  that  did  not  logically 
fall,  —  as  if  it  excluded  their  own  merit,  or  shook 
their  understandings.  They  are  jealous  of  minds 
that  have  much  facility  of  association,  from  an 
instinctive  fear  that  the  seeing  many  relations  to 
their  thought  might  impair  this  serial  continuity 
and  lucrative  concentration.  They  are  impatient 
of  genius,  or  of  minds  addicted  to  contemplation, 
and  cannot  conceal  their  contempt  for  sallies  of 
thought,  however  lawful,  whose  steps  they  cannot 
count  by  their  wonted  rule.  Neither  do  they 
reckon  better  a  syllogism  that  ends  in  syllogism. 
1  Antony  Wood.  a  Man's  Soule,  p.  29. 


ABILITY.  81 

For  they  have  a  supreme  eye  to  facts,  and  theirs  is 
a  logic  that  brings  salt  to  soup,  hammer  to  nail,  oar 
to  boat ;  the  logic  of  cooks,  carpenters  and  chemists, 
following  the  sequence  of  nature,  and  one  on  which 
words  make  no  impression.  Their  mind  is  not  daz- 
zled by  its  own  means,  but  locked  and  bolted  to 
results.  They  love  men  who,  like  Samuel  John- 
son, a  doctor  in  the  schools,  would  jump  out  of  his 
syllogism  the  instant  his  major  proposition  was  in 
danger,  to  save  that  at  all  hazards.  Their  prac- 
tical vision  is  spacious,  and  they  can  hold  many 
threads  without  entangling  them.  All  the  steps 
they  orderly  take ;  but  with  the  high  logic  of  never 
confounding  the  minor  and  major  proposition ; 
keeping  their  eye  on  their  aim,  in  all  the  complicity 
and  delay  incident  to  the  several  series  of  means 
they  employ.  There  is  room  in  their  minds  for 
this  and  that,  —  a  science  of  degrees.  In  the 
courts  the  independence  of  the  judges  and  the 
loyalty  of  the  suitors  are  equally  excellent.  In 
Parliament  they  have  hit  on  that  capital  inven- 
tion of  freedom,  a  constitutional  opposition.  And 
when  courts  and  parliament  are  both  deaf,  the 
plaintiff  is  not  silenced.  Calm,  patient,  his  weapon 
of  defence  from  year  to  year  is  the  obstinate  repro- 
duction of  the  grievance,  with  calculations  and  es- 
timates. But,  meantime,  he  is  drawing  numbers 
und  money  to  his  opinion,  resolved  that  if  all  rem- 
VOL.  v.  6 


82  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

edy  fails,  right  of  revolution  is  at  the  bottom  of  his 
charter-box.  They  are  bound  to  see  their  measure 
carried,  and  stick  to  it  through  ages  of  defeat. 

Into  this  English  logic,  however,  an  infusion  of 
justice  enters,  not  so  apparent  in  other  races ;  —  a 
belief  in  the  existence  of  two  sides,  and  the  resolu- 
tion to  see  fair  play.  There  is  on  every  question 
an  appeal  from  the  assertion  of  the  parties  to  the 
proof  of  what  is  asserted.  They  kiss  the  dust  be- 
fore a  fact.  Is  it  a  machine,  is  it  a  charter,  is  it  a 
boxer  in  the  ring,  is  it  a  candidate  on  the  hustings, 
—  the  universe  of  Englishmen  will  suspend  their 
judgment  until  the  trial  can  be  had.  They  are  not 
to  be  led  by  a  phrase,  they  want  a  working  plan,  a 
working  machine,  a  working  constitution,  and  will 
sit  out  the  trial  and  abide  by  the  issue  and  reject 
all  preconceived  theories.  In  politics  they  put 
blunt  questions,  which  must  be  answered ;  Who  is 
to  pay  the  taxes  ?  What  will  you  do  for  trade  ? 
What  for  corn  ?  What  for  the  spinner  ? 

This  singular  fairness  and  its  results  strike  the 
French  with  surprise.  Philip  de  Commines  says, 
"  Now,  in  my  opinion,  among  all  the  sovereignties 
I  know  in  the  world,  that  in  which  the  public  good 
is  best  attended  to,  and  the  least  violence  exercised 
on  the  people,  is  that  of  England."  Life  is  safe, 
and  personal  rights  ;  and  what  is  freedom  without 
security?  whilst,  in  France,  "fraternity,"  "equal- 


ABILITY.  83 

ity,"  and  "  indivisible  unity "  are  names  for  assassi- 
nation. Montesquieu  said,  "England  is  the  freest 
country  in  the  world.  If  a  man  in  England  had  as 
many  enemies  as  hairs  on  his  head,  no  harm  would 
happen  to  him." 

Their  self-respect,  their  faith  in  causation,  and 
their  realistic  logic  or  coupling  of  means  to  ends, 
have  given  them  the  leadership  of  the  modern 
world.  Montesquieu  said,  "No  people  have  true 
common-sense  but  those  who  are  born  in  England." 
This  common-sense  is  a  perception  of  all  the  con- 
ditions of  our  earthly  existence ;  of  laws  that  can 
be  stated,  and  of  laws  that  cannot  be  stated,  or 
that  are  learned  only  by  practice,  in  which  allow- 
ance for  friction  is  made.  They  are  impious  in 
their  skepticism  of  theory,  and  in  high  departments 
they  are  cramped  and  sterile.  But  the  uncondi- 
tional surrender  to  facts,  and  the  choice  of  means 
to  reach  their  ends,  are  as  admirable  as  with  ants 
and  bees. 

The  bias  of  the  nation  is  a  passion  for  utility. 
They  love  the  lever,  the  screw  and  pulley,  the 
Flanders  draught-horse,  the  waterfall,  wind-mills, 
tide-mills;  the  sea  and  the  wind  to  bear  their 
freight  ships.  More  than  the  diamond  Koh-i-noor, 
which  glitters  among  their  crown  jewels,  they  prize 
that  dull  pebble  which  is  wiser  than  a  man,  whose 
poles  turn  themselves  to  the  poles  of  the  world 


84  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

and  whose  axis  is  parallel  to  the  axis  of  the  world. 
Now,  their  toys  are  steam  and  galvanism.  They 
are  heavy  at  the  fine  arts,  but  adroit  at  the  coarse ; 
not  good  in  jewelry  or  mosaics,  but  the  best  iron- 
masters, colliers,  wool  -  combers  and  tanners  in 
Europe.  They  apply  themselves  to  agriculture, 
to  draining,  to  resisting  encroachments  of  sea, 
wind,  travelling  sands,  cold  and  wet  sub-soil  ;  to 
fishery,  to  manufacture  of  indispensable  staples, 
—  salt,  plumbago,  leather,  wool,  glass,  pottery  and 
brick,  —  to  bees  and  silkworms  ;  —  and  by  their 
steady  combinations  they  succeed.  A  manufacturer 
sits  down  to  dinner  in  a  suit  of  clothes  which  was 
wool  on  a  sheep's  back  at  sunrise.  You  dine  with 
a  gentleman  on  venison,  pheasant,  quail,  pigeons, 
poultry,  mushrooms  and  pine-apples,  all  the  growth 
of  his  estate.  They  are  neat  husbands  for  order- 
ing all  their  tools  pertaining  to  house  and  field. 
All  are  well  kept.  There  is  no  want  and  no  waste. 
They  study  use  and  fitness  in  their  building,  in  the 
order  of  their  dwellings  and  in  their  dress.  The 
Frenchman  invented  the  ruffle ;  the  Englishman 
added  the  shirt.  The  Englishman  wears  a  sensible 
coat  buttoned  to  the  chin,  of  rough  but  solid  and 
lasting  texture.  If  he  is  a  lord,  he  dresses  a  little 
worse  than  a  commoner.  They  have  diffused  the 
taste  for  plain  substantial  hats,  shoes  and  coats 
through  Europe.  They  think  him  the  best  dressed 


ABILITY.  85 

man  whose  dress  is  so  fit  for  his  use  that  you  can- 
not notice  or  remember  to  describe  it. 

They  secure  the  essentials  in  their  diet,  in  their 
arts  and  manufactures.  Every  article  of  cutlery 
shows,  in  its  shape,  thought  and  long  experience  of 
workmen.  They  put  the  expense  in  the  right 
place,  as,  in  their  sea-steamers,  in  the  solidity  of 
the  machinery  and  the  strength  of  the  boat.  The 
admirable  equipment  of  their  arctic  ships  carries 
London  to  the  pole.  They  build  roads,  aqueducts ; 
warm  and  ventilate  houses.  And  they  have  im- 
pressed their  directness  and  practical  habit  on  mod- 
ern civilization. 

In  trade,  the  Englishman  believes  that  nobody 
breaks  who  ought  not  to  break;  and  that  if  he 
do  not  make  trade  every  thing,  it  will  make  him 
nothing ;  and  acts  on  this  belief.  The  spirit  of 
system,  attention  to  details,  and  the  subordination 
of  details,  or  the  not  driving  things  too  finely, 
(which  is  charged  on  the  Germans,)  constitute 
that  despatch  of  business  which  makes  the  mercan- 
tile power  of  England. 

In  war,  the  Englishman  looks  to  his  means. 
He  is  the  opinion  of  Civilis,  his  German  ancestor, 
whom  Tacitus  reports  as  holding  that  "  the  gods  are 
on  the  side  of  the  strongest ;  "  —  a  sentence  which 
Bonaparte  unconsciously  translated,  when  he  said 
that  "he  had  noticed  that  Providence  always  fa- 


86  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

vored  the  heaviest  battalion."  Their  military  sci- 
ence propounds  that  if  the  weight  of  the  advancing 
column  is  greater  than  that  of  the  resisting,  the 
latter  is  destroyed.  Therefore  Wellington,  when 
he  came  to  the  army  in  Spain,  had  every  man 
weighed,  first  with  accoutrements,  and  then  with- 
out ;  believing  that  the  force  of  an  army  depended 
on  the  weight  and  power  of  the  individual  sol- 
diers, in  spite  of  cannon.  Lord  Palmerston  told 
the  House  of  Commons  that  more  care  is  taken 
of  the  health  and  comfort  of  English  troops  than 
of  any  other  troops  in  the  world ;  and  that  hence 
the  English  can  put  more  men  into  the  rank,  on 
the  day  of  action,  on  the  field  of  battle,  than  any 
other  army.  Before  the  bombardment  of  the  Da- 
nish forts  in  the  Baltic,  Nelson  spent  day  after 
day,  himself,  in  the  boats,  on  the  exhausting  ser- 
vice of  sounding  the  channel.  Clerk  of  Eldiu's 
celebrated  manoeuvre  of  breaking  the  line  of  sea- 
battle,  and  Nelson's  feat  of  doubling,  or  stationing 
his  ships  one  on  the  outer  bow,  and  another  on 
the  outer  quarter  of  each  of  the  enemy's,  were  only 
translations  into  naval  tactics  of  Bonaparte's  rule 
of  concentration.  Lord  Collingwood  was  accus- 
tomed to  tell  his  men  that  if  they  could  fire  three 
well-directed  broadsides  in  five  minutes,  no  vessel 
could  resist  them  ;  and  from  constant  practice  they 
came  to  do  it  in  three  minutes  and  a  half. 


ABILITY.  87 

But  conscious  that  no  race  of  better  men  exists, 
they  rely  most  on  the  simplest  means,  and  do  not 
like  ponderous  and  difficult  tactics,  but  delight  to 
bring  the  affair  hand  to  hand ;  where  the  victory 
lies  with  the  strength,  courage  and  endurance  of  the 
individual  combatants.  They  adopt  every  improve- 
ment in  rig,  in  motor,  in  weapons,  but  they  funda- 
mentally believe  that  the  best  stratagem  in  naval 
war  is  to  lay  your  ship  close  alongside  of  the  ene- 
my's ship  and  bring  all  your  guns  to  bear  on  him, 
until  you  or  he  go  to  the  bottom.  This  is  the  old 
fashion,  which  never  goes  out  of  fashion,  neither 
in  nor  out  of  England. 

It  is  not  usually  a  point  of  honor,  nor  a  religious 
sentiment,  and  never  any  whim,  that  they  will  shed 
their  blood  for;  but  usually  property,  and  right 
measured  by  property,  that  breeds  revolution.  They 
have  no  Indian  taste  for  a  tomahawk-dance,  no 
French  taste  for  a  badge  or  a  proclamation.  The 
Englishman  is  peaceably  minding  his  business  and 
earning  his  day's  wages.  But  if  you  offer  to  lay 
hand  on  his  day's  wages,  on  his  cow,  or  his  right  in 
common,  or  his  shop,  he  will  fight  to  the  Judg- 
ment. Magna  -  charta,  jury -trial,  habeas  -  corpus, 
star-chamber,  ship-money,  Popery,  Plymouth  col- 
ony, American  Revolution,  are  all  questions  involv- 
ing a  yeoman's  right  to  his  dinner,  and  except  as 
touching  that,  would  not  have  lashed  the  British 
nation  to  rage  and  revolt, 


88  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Whilst  they  are  thus  instinct  with  a  spirit  of  or- 
der and  of  calculation,  it  must  be  owned  they  are 
capable  of  larger  views ;  but  the  indulgence  is  ex- 
pensive to  them,  costs  great  crises,  or  accumulations 
of  mental  power.  In  common,  the  horse  works  best 
with  blinders.  Nothing  is  more  in  the  line  of  Eng- 
lish thought  than  our  unvarnished  Connecticut  ques- 
tion "  Pray,  sir,  how  do  you  get  your  living  when 
you  are  at  home  ?  "  The  questions  of  freedom,  of 
taxation,  of  privilege,  are  money  questions.  Heavy 
fellows,  steeped  in  beer  and  fleshpots,  they  are  hard 
of  hearing  and  dim  of  sight.  Their  drowsy  minds 
need  to  be  flagellated  by  war  and  trade  and  politics 
and  persecution.  They  cannot  well  read  a  princi- 
ple, except  by  the  light  of  fagots  and  of  burning 
towns. 

Tacitus  says  of  the  Germans,  "  Powerful  only  in 
sudden  efforts,  they  are  impatient  of  toil  and  labor." 
This  highly-destined  race,  if  it  had  not  somewhere 
added  the  chamber  of  patience  to  its  brain,  would 
not  have  built  London.  I  know  not  from  which  of 
the  tribes  and  temperaments  that  went  to  the  com- 
position of  the  people  this  tenacity  was  supplied, 
but  they  clinch  every  nail  they  drive.  They  have 
no  running  for  luck,  and  no  immoderate  speed. 
They  spend  largely  on  their  fabric,  and  await  the 
slow  return.  Their  leather  lies  tanning  seven  years 
in  the  vat.  At  Rogers' s  mills,  in  Sheffield,  where  I 


ABILITY.  89 

was  shown  the  process  of  making  a  razor  and  a  pen- 
knife, I  was  told  there  is  no  luck  in  making  good 
steel ;  that  they  make  no  mistakes,  every  blade  in 
the  hundred  and  in  the  thousand  is  good.  And 
that  is  characteristic  of  all  their  work,  —  no  more 
is  attempted  than  is  done. 

When  Thor  and  his  companions  arrive  at  Utgard, 
he  is  told  that  "  nobody  is  permitted  to  remain  here, 
unless  he  understand  some  art,  and  excel  in  it  all 
other  men."  The  same  question  is  still  put  to  the 
posterity  of  Thor.  A  nation  of  laborers,  every  man 
is  trained  to  some  one  art  or  detail  and  aims  at  per- 
fection in  that;  not  content  unless  he  has  some- 
thing in  which  he  thinks  he  surpasses  all  other  men. 
He  would  rather  not  do  any  thing  at  all  than  not 
do  it  well.  I  suppose  no  people  have  such  thor- 
oughness ;  —  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  every 
man  meaning  to  be  master  of  his  art. 

"  To  show  capacity,"  a  Frenchman  described  as 
the  end  of  a  speech  in  debate  :  "  No,"  said  an  Eng- 
lishman, "  but  to  set  your  shoulder  at  the  wheel,  — 
to  advance  the  business."  Sir  Samuel  Romilly 
refused  to  speak  in  popular  assemblies,  confining 
himself  to  the  House  of  Commons,  where  a  meas- 
ure can  be  carried  by  a  speech.  The  business  of 
the  House  of  Commons  is  conducted  by  a  few  per- 
sons, but  these  are  hard-worked.  Sir  Robert  Peel 
M  knew  the  Blue  Books  by  heart."  His  colleagues 


90  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

and  rivals  carry  Hansard  in  their  heads.  The  high 
civil  and  legal  offices  are  not  beds  of  ease,  but  posts 
which  exact  frightful  amounts  of  mental  labor. 
Many  of  the  great  leaders,  like  Pitt,  Canning,  Cas- 
tlereagh,  Romilly,  are  soon  worked  to  death.  They 
are  excellent  judges  in  England  of  a  good  worker, 
and  when  they  find  one,  like  Clarendon,  Sir  Philip 
Warwick,  Sir  William  Coventry,  Ashley,  Burke, 
Thurlow,  Mansfield,  Pitt,  Eldon,  Peel,  or  Kussell, 
there  is  nothing  too  good  or  too  high  for  him. 

They  have  a  wonderful  heat  in  the  pursuit  of  a 
public  aim.  Private  persons  exhibit,  in  scientific 
and  antiquarian  researches,  the  same  pertinacity 
as  the  nation  showed  in  the  coalitions  in  which  it 
yoked  Europe  against  the  empire  of  Bonaparte, 
one  after  the  other  defeated,  and  still  renewed, 
until  the  sixth  hurled  him  from  his  seat. 

Sir  John  Herschel,  in  completion  of  the  work 
of  his  father,  who  had  made  the  catalogue  of  the 
stars  of  the  northern  hemisphere,  expatriated  him- 
self for  years  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  finished 
his  inventory  of  the  southern  heaven,  came  home, 
and  redacted  it  in  eight  years  more ;  —  a  work 
whose  value  does  not  begin  until  thirty  years  have 
elapsed,  and  thenceforward  a  record  to  all  ages  of 
the  highest  import.  The  Admiralty  sent  out  the 
Arctic  expeditions  year  after  year,  in  search  of 
Sir  John  Franklin,  until  at  last  they  have  threaded 


ABILITY.  91 

their  way  through  polar  pack  and  Behring's  Straits 
and  solved  the  geographical  problem.  Lord  Elgin, 
at  Athens,  saw  the  imminent  ruin  of  the  Greek 
remains,  set  up  his  scaffoldings,  in  spite  of  epi- 
grams, and,  after  five  years'  labor  to  collect  them, 
got  his  marbles  on  ship-board.  The  ship  struck  a 
rock  and  went  to  the  bottom.  He  had  them  all 
fished  up  by  divers,  at  a  vast  expense,  and  brought 
to  London  ;  not  knowing  that  Haydon,  Fuseli  and 
Canova,  and  all  good  heads  in  all  the  world,  were 
to  be  his  applauders.  In  the  same  spirit,  were  the 
excavation  and  research  by  Sir  Charles  Fellowes 
for  the  Xanthian  monument,  and  of  Layard  for 
his  Nineveh  sculptures. 

The  nation  sits  in  the  immense  city  they  have 
builded,  a  London  extended  into  every  man's  mind, 
though  he  live  in  Van  Dieman's  Land  or  Cape- 
town. Faithful  performance  of  what  is  undertaken 
to  be  performed,  they  honor  in  themselves,  and  ex- 
act in  others,  as  certificate  of  equality  with  them- 
selves. The  modern  world  is  theirs.  They  have 
made  and  make  it  day  by  day.  The  commercial 
relations  of  the  world  are  so  intimately  drawn  to 
London,  that  every  dollar  on  earth  contributes  to 
the  strength  of  the  English  government.  And  if 
all  the  wealth  in  the  planet  should  perish  by  war 
or  deluge,  they  know  themselves  competent  to  re- 
place it. 


92  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

They  have  approved  their  Saxon  blood,  by  their 
sea-going  qualities ;  their  descent  from  Odin's 
smiths,  by  their  hereditary  skill  in  working  in  iron ; 
their  British  birth,  by  husbandry  and  immense 
wheat  harvests;  and  justified  their  occupancy  of 
the  centre  of  habitable  land,  by  their  supreme 
ability  and  cosmopolitan  spirit.  They  have  tilled, 
builded,  forged,  spun  and  woven.  They  have  made 
the  island  a  thoroughfare,  and  London  a  shop,  a 
law-court,  a  record-office  and  scientific  bureau,  in- 
viting to  strangers;  a  sanctuary  to  refugees  of 
every  political  and  religious  opinion ;  and  such  a 
city  that  almost  every  active  man,  in  any  nation, 
finds  himself  at  one  time  or  other  forced  to  visit  it. 

In  every  path  of  practical  activity  they  have 
gone  even  with  the  best.  There  is  no  secret  of 
war  in  which  they  have  not  shown  mastery.  The 
steam-chamber  of  Watt,  the  locomotive  of  Ste- 
phenson,  the  cotton-mule  of  Roberts,  perform  the 
labor  of  the  world.  There  is  no  department  of 
literature,  of  science,  or  of  useful  art,  in  which 
they  have  not  produced  a  first-rate  book.  It  is 
England  whose  opinion  is  waited  for  on  the  merit 
of  a  new  invention,  an  improved  science.  And  in 
the  complications  of  the  trade  and  politics  of  their 
vast  empire,  they  have  been  equal  to  every  exi- 
gency, with  counsel  and  with  conduct.  Is  it  their 
luck,  or  is  it  in  the  chambers  of  their  brain,  —  it 


ABILITY.  93 

is  their  commercial  advantage  that  whatever  light 
appears  in  better  method  or  happy  invention, 
breaks  out  in  their  race.  They  are  a  family  to 
which  a  destiny  attaches,  and  the  Banshee  has 
sworn  that  a  male  heir  shall  never  be  wanting. 
They  have  a  wealth  of  men  to  fill  important  posts, 
and  the  vigilance  of  party  criticism  insures  the  se- 
lection of  a  competent  person. 

A  proof  of  the  energy  of  the  British  people  is 
the  highly  artificial  construction  of  the  whole  fab- 
ric. The  climate  and  geography,  I  said,  were  fac- 
titious, as  if  the  hands  of  man  had  arranged  the 
conditions.  The  same  character  pervades  the 
whole  kingdom.  Bacon  said,  "  Kome  was  a  state 
not  subject  to  paradoxes ; "  but  England  subsists 
by  antagonisms  and  contradictions.  The  founda- 
tions of  its  greatness  are  the  rolling  waves ;  and 
from  first  to  last  it  is  a  museum  of  anomalies. 
This  foggy  and  rainy  country  furnishes  the  world 
with  astronomical  observations.  Its  short  rivers  do 
not  afford  water-power,  but  the  land  shakes  under 
the  thunder  of  the  mills.  There  is  no  gold-mine 
of  any  importance,  but  there  is  more  gold  in 
England  than  in  all  other  countries.  It  is  too  far 
north  for  the  culture  of  the  vine,  but  the  wines  of 
all  countries  are  in  its  docks.  The  French  Comte 
de  Lauraguais  said,  "  No  fruit  ripens  in  England 


94  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

but  a  baked  apple ; "  but  oranges  and  pine-applea 
are  as  cheap  in  London  as  in  the  Mediterranean. 
The  Mark-Lane  Express,  or  the  Custom  House  Re- 
turns, bear  out  to  the  letter  the  vaunt  of  Pope,  — 

"  Let  India  boast  her  palms,  nor  envy  we 
The  weeping  amber,  nor  the  spicy  tree, 
While,  by  our  oaks,  those  precious  loads  are  borne, 
And  realms  commanded  which  those  trees  adorn." 

The  native  cattle  are  extinct,  but  the  island  is  full 
of  artificial  breeds.  The  agriculturist  Bakewell 
created  sheep  and  cows  and  horses  to  order,  and 
breeds  in  which  every  thing  was  omitted  but  what 
is  economical.  The  cow  is  sacrificed  to  her  bag, 
the  ox  to  his  sirloin.  Stall-feeding  makes  sperm- 
mills  of  the  cattle,  and  converts  the  stable  to  a 
chemical  factory.  The  rivers,  lakes  and  ponds,  too 
much  fished,  or  obstructed  by  factories,  are  artifi- 
cially filled  with  the  eggs  of  salmon,  turbot  and 
herring. 

Chat  Moss  and  the  fens  of  Lincolnshire  and 
Cambridgeshire  are  unhealthy  and  too  barren  to 
pay  rent.  By  cylindrical  tiles  and  guttapercha 
tubes,  five  millions  of  acres  of  bad  land  have  been 
drained  and  put  on  equality  with  the  best,  for  rape- 
culture  and  grass.  The  climate  too,  which  was  al- 
ready believed  to  have  become  milder  and  drier  by 
the  enormous  consumption  of  coal,  is  so  far  reached 
by  this  new  action,  that  fogs  and  storms  are  said  to 


FACTITIOUS.  95 

disappear.  In  due  course,  all  England  will  be 
drained  and  rise  a  second  time  out  of  the  waters. 
The  latest  step  was  to  call  in  the  aid  of  steam  to 
agriculture.  Steam  is  almost  an  Englishman.  I 
do  not  know  but  they  will  send  him  to  Parliament 
next,  to  make  laws.  He  weaves,  forges,  saws, 
pounds,  fans,  and  now  he  must  pump,  grind,  dig 
and  plough  for  the  farmer.  The  markets  created 
by  the  manufacturing  population  have  erected  agri- 
culture into  a  great  thriving  and  spending  indus- 
try. The  value  of  the  houses  in  Britain  is  equal  to 
the  value  of  the  soil.  Artificial  aids  of  all  kinds 
are  cheaper  than  the  natural  resources.  No  man 
can  afford  to  walk,  when  the  parliamentary-train 
carries  him  for  a  penny  a  mile.  Gas-burners  are 
cheaper  than  daylight  in  numberless  floors  in  the 
cities.  All  the  houses  in  London  buy  their  water. 
The  English  trade  does  not  exist  for  the  exporta- 
tion of  native  products,  but  on  its  manufactures,  or 
the  making  well  every  thing  which  is  ill-made  else- 
where. They  make  ponchos  for  the  Mexican,  ban- 
dannas for  the  Hindoo,  ginseng  for  the  Chinese, 
beads  for  the  Indian,  laces  for  the  Flemings,  tele- 
scopes for  astronomers,  camions  for  kings. 

The  Board  of  Trade  caused  the  best  models  of 
Greece  and  Italy  to  be  placed  within  the  reach  of 
every  manufacturing  population.  They  caused  to 
be  translated  from  foreign  languages  and  illustrated 


96  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

by  elaborate  drawings,  the  most  approved  works  of 
Munich,  Berlin  and  Paris.  They  have  ransacked 
Italy  to  find  new  forms,  to  add  a  grace  to  the  prod- 
ucts of  their  looms,  their  potteries  and  their  foun- 
dries.1 

The  nearer  we  look,  the  more  artificial  is  their 
social  system.  Their  law  is  a  network  of  fictions. 
Their  property,  a  scrip  or  certificate  of  right  to  in- 
terest on  money  that  no  man  ever  saw.  Their  so- 
cial classes  are  made  by  statute.  Their  ratios  of 
power  and  representation  are  historical  and  legal. 
The  last  Reform -bill  took  away  political  power 
from  a  mound,  a  ruin  and  a  stone-wall,  whilst  Bir- 
mingham and  Manchester,  whose  mills  paid  for  the 
wars  of  Europe,  had  no  representative.  Purity  in 
the  elective  Parliament  is  secured  by  the  purchase 
of  seats.2  Foreign  power  is  kept  by  armed  colo- 
nies ;  power  at  home,  by  a  standing  army  of  police. 
The  pauper  lives  better  than  the  free  laborer,  the 
thief  better  than  the  pauper,  and  the  transported 
felon  better  than  the  one  under  imprisonment.  The 
crimes  are  factitious  ;  as  smuggling,  poaching,  non- 
conformity, heresy  and  treason.  The  sovereignty 
of  the  seas  is  maintained  by  the  impressment  of 

1  See  Memorial  of  H.  Greenough,  p.  66,  New  York,  1853. 

2  Sir  S.  Romilly,  purest  of  English  patriots,  decided  that 
the  only  independent  mode  of  entering  Parliament  was  to 
buy  a  seat,  and  he  bought  Horsham. 


FACTITIOUS.  97 

seamen.  "  The  impressment  of  seamen,"  said  Lord 
Eldon,  "  is  the  life  of  our  navy."  Solvency  is 
maintained  by  means  of  a  national  debt,  on  the 
principle,  "  If  you  will  not  lend  me  the  money,  how 
can  I  pay  you  ?  "  For  the  administration  of  justice, 
Sir  Samuel  Romilly's  expedient  for  clearing  the 
arrears  of  business  in  Chancery  was,  the  Chancel- 
lor's staying  away  entirely  from  his  court.  Their 
system  of  education  is  factitious.  The  Universi- 
ties galvanize  dead  languages  into  a  semblance  of 
life.  Their  church  is  artificial.  The  manners  and 
customs  of  society  are  artificial ;  —  made-up  men 
with  made-up  manners ;  —  and  thus  the  whole  is 
Birminghamized,  and  we  have  a  nation  whose  ex- 
istence is  a  work  of  art ;  —  a  cold,  barren,  almost 
arctic  isle  being  made  the  most  fruitful,  luxurious 
and  imperial  land  in  the  whole  earth. 

Man  in  England  submits  to  be  a  product  of  po- 
litical economy.  On  a  bleak  moor  a  mill  is  built, 
a  banking-house  is  opened,  and  men  come  in  as 
water  in  a  sluice-way,  and  towns  and  cities  rise. 
Man  is  made  as  a  Birmingham  button.  The  rapid 
doubling  of  the  population  dates  from  Watt's 
steam-engine.  A  landlord  who  owns  a  province, 
says  "  The  tenantry  are  unprofitable  ;  let  me  have 
sheep."  He  unroofs  the  houses  and  ships  the  pop- 
ulation to  America.  The  nation  is  accustomed  to 
the  instantaneous  creation  of  wealth.  It  is  the 

VOL.  V.  T 


98  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

maxim  of  their  economists,  "  that  the  greater  part 
in  value  of  the  wealth  now  existing  in  England  has 
been  produced  by  human  hands  within  the  last 
twelve  months."  Meantime,  three  or  four  days' 
rain  will  reduce  hundreds  to  starving  in  London. 

One  secret  of  their  power  is  their  mutual  good 
understanding.  Not  only  good  minds  are  born 
among  them,  but  all  the  people  have  good  minds. 
Every  nation  has  yielded  some  good  wit,  if,  as  has 
chanced  to  many  tribes,  only  one.  But  the  intel- 
lectual organization  of  the  English  admits  a  com- 
municableness  of  knowledge  and  ideas  among  them 
all.  An  electric  touch  by  any  of  their  national 
ideas,  melts  them  into  one  family  and  brings  the 
hoards  of  power  which  their  individuality  is  al- 
ways hiving,  into  use  and  play  for  all.  Is  it  the 
smallness  of  the  country,  or  is  it  the  pride  and  af- 
fection of  race,  —  they  have  solidarity,  or  responsi- 
bleness,  and  trust  in  each  other. 

Their  minds,  like  wool,  admit  of  a  dye  which  is 
more  lasting  than  the  cloth.  They  embrace  their 
cause  with  more  tenacity  than  their  life.  Though 
not  military,  yet  every  common  subject  by  the  poll 
is  fit  to  make  a  soldier  of.  These  private,  reserved, 
mute  family-men  can  adopt  a  public  end  with  all 
their  heat,  and  this  strength  of  affection  makes  the 
romance  of  their  heroes.  The  difference  of  rank 


SOLIDARITY.  99 

does  not  divide  the  national  heart.  The  Danish 
poet  Oehlenschlager  complains  that  who  writes  in 
Danish  writes  to  two  hundred  readers.  In  Ger- 
many there  is  one  speech  for  the  learned,  and  an- 
other for  the  masses,  to  that  extent  that,  it  is  said, 
no  sentiment  or  phrase  from  the  works  of  any 
great  German  writer  is  ever  heard  among  the  lower 
classes.  But  in  England,  the  language  of  the  noble 
is  the  language  of  the  poor.  In  Parliament,  in 
pulpits,  in  theatres,  when  the  speakers  rise  to 
thought  and  passion,  the  language  becomes  idio- 
matic;  the  people  in  the  street  best  understand 
the  best  words.  And  their  language  seems  drawn 
from  the  Bible,  the  Common  Law  and  the  works  of 
Shakspeare,  Bacon,  Milton,  Pope,  Young,  Cowper, 
Burns  and  Scott.  The  island  has  produced  two 
or  three  of  the  greatest  men  that  ever  existed,  but 
they  were  not  solitary  in  their  own  time.  Men 
quickly  embodied  what  Newton  found  out,  in 
Greenwich  observatories  and  practical  navigation. 
The  boys  know  all  that  Hutton  knew  of  strata,  or 
Dalton  of  atoms,  or  Harvey  of  blood-vessels ;  and 
these  studies,  once  dangerous,  are  in  fashion.  So 
what  is  invented  or  known  in  agriculture,  or  in 
trade,  or  in  war,  or  in  art,  or  in  literature  and  an- 
tiquities. A  great  ability,  not  amassed  on  a  few 
giants,  but  poured  into  the  general  mind,  so  that 
each  of  them  could  at  a  pinch  stand  in  the  shoes  of 


100  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  other ;  and  they  are  more  bound  in  character 
than  differenced  in  ability  or  in  rank.  The  laborer 
is  a  possible  lord.  The  lord  is  a  possible  basket- 
maker.  Every  man  carries  the  English  system  in 
his  brain,  knows  what  is  confided  to  him  and  does 
therein  the  best  he  can.  The  chancellor  carries 
England  on  his  mace,  the  midshipman  at  the  point 
of  his  dirk,  the  smith  on  his  hammer,  the  cook 
in  the  bowl  of  his  spoon  ;  the  postilion  cracks  his 
whip  for  England,  and  the  sailor  times  his  oars  to 
"  God  save  the  King ! "  The  very  felons  have  their 
pride  in  each  other's  English  stanchness.  In  poli- 
tics and  in  war  they  hold  together  as  by  hooks  of 
steel.  The  charm  in  Nelson's  history  is  the  unself- 
ish greatness,  the  assurance  of  being  supported  to 
the  uttermost  by  those  whom  he  supports  to  the  ut- 
termost. Whilst  they  are  some  ages  ahead  of  the 
rest  of  the  world  in  the  art  of  living ;  whilst  in 
some  directions  they  do  not  represent  the  modern 
spirit  but  constitute  it ;  —  this  vanguard  of  civility 
and  power  they  coldly  hold,  marching  in  phalanx, 
lockstep,  foot  after  foot,  file  after  file  of  heroes, 
ten  thousand  deep. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MANNERS. 

I  FIND  the  Englishman  to  be  him  of  all  men  who 
stands  firmest  in  his  shoes.  They  have  in  them- 
selves what  they  value  in  their  horses,  —  mettle 
and  bottom.  On  the  day  of  my  arrival  at  Liver- 
pool, a  gentleman,  in  describing  to  me  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  happened  to  say,  "  Lord 
Clarendon  has  pluck  like  a  cock  and  will  fight  till 
he  dies ; "  and  what  I  heard  first  I  heard  last,  and 
the  one  thing  the  English  value  is  pluck.  The 
word  is  not  beautiful,  but  on  the  quality  they  sig- 
nify by  it  the  nation  is  unanimous.  The  cabmen 
have  it ;  the  merchants  have  it ;  the  bishops  have 
it ;  the  women  have  it ;  the  journals  have  it  ;  — 
the  Times  newspaper  they  say  is  the  pluckiest 
thing  in  England,  and  Sydney  Smith  had  made  it 
a  proverb  that  little  Lord  John  Russell,  the  minis- 
ter, would  take  the  command  of  the  Channel  fleet 
to-morrow. 

They  require  you  to  dare  to  be  of  your  own 
opinion,  and  they  hate  the  practical  cowards  who 
cannot  in  affairs  answer  directly  yes  or  no.  They 


102  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

dare  to  displease,  nay,  they  will  let  you  break  all 
the  commandments,  if  you  do  it  natively  and  with 
spirit.  You  must  be  somebody  ;  then  you  may  do 
this  or  that,  as  you  will. 

Machinery  has  been  applied  to  all  work,  and 
carried  to  such  perfection  that  little  is  left  for  the 
men  but  to  mind  the  engines  and  feed  the  furnaces. 
But  the  machines  require  punctual  service,  and  as 
they  never  tire,  they  prove  too  much  for  their  ten- 
ders. Mines,  forges,  mills,  breweries,  railroads, 
steam-pump,  steam-plough,  drill  of  regiments,  drill 
of  police,  rule  of  court  and  shop-rule  have  operated 
to  give  a  mechanical  regularity  to  all  the  habit  and 
action  of  men.  A  terrible  machine  has  possessed 
itself  of  the  ground,  the  air,  the  men  and  women, 
and  hardly  even  thought  is  free. 

The  mechanical  might  and  organization  requires 
in  the  people  constitution  and  answering  spirits ; 
and  he  who  goes  among  them  must  have  some 
weight  of  metal.  At  last,  you  take  your  hint  from 
the  fury  of  life  you  find,  and  say,  one  thing  is 
plain,  this  is  no  country  for  fainthearted  people: 
don't  creep  about  diffidently  ;  make  up  your  mind ; 
take  your  own  course,  and  you  shall  find  respect 
and  furtherance. 

It  requires,  men  say,  a  good  constitution  to  travel 
in  Spain.  I  say  as  much  of  England,  for  other 
cause,  simply  on  account  of  the  vigor  and  brawn  of 


MANNERS.  103 

the  people.  Nothing  but  the  most  serious  business 
could  give  one  any  counterweight  to  these  Bare- 
sarks, though  they  were  only  to  order  eggs  and  muf- 
fins for  their  breakfast.  The  Englishman  speaks 
with  all  his  body.  His  elocution  is  stomachic,  — 
as  the  American's  is  labial.  The  Englishman  is 
very  petulant  and  precise  about  his  accommodation 
at  inns  and  on  the  roads  ;  a  quiddle  about  his  toast 
and  his  chop  and  every  species  of  convenience,  and 
loud  and  pungent  in  his  expressions  of  impatience 
at  any  neglect.  His  vivacity  betrays  itself  at  all 
points,  in  his  manners,  in  his  respiration,  and  the 
inarticulate  noises  he  makes  in  clearing  the  throat ; 
—  all  significant  of  burly  strength.  He  has  stam- 
ina ;  he  can  take  the  initiative  in  emergencies.  He 
has  that  aplomb  which  results  from  a  good  adjust- 
ment of  the  moral  and  physical  nature  and  the 
obedience  of  all  the  powers  to  the  will ;  as  if  the 
axes  of  his  eyes  were  united  to  his  backbone,  and 
only  moved  with  the  tmnk. 

This  vigor  appears  in  the  incuriosity  and  stony 
neglect,  each  of  every  other.  Each  man  walks, 
eats,  drinks,  shaves,  dresses,  gesticulates,  and,  in 
every  manner  acts  and  suffers  without  reference  to 
the  bystanders,  in  his  own  fashion,  only  careful  not 
to  interfere  with  them  or  annoy  them  ;  not  that  he 
is  trained  to  neglect  the  eyes  of  his  neighbors,  — 
he  is  really  occupied  with  his  own  affair  and  does 


104  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

not  think  of  them.  Every  man  in  this  polished 
country  consults  only  his  convenience,  as  much  as  a 
solitary  pioneer  in  Wisconsin.  I  know  not  where 
any  personal  eccentricity  is  so  freely  allowed,  and 
no  man  gives  himself  any  concern  with  it.  An 
Englishman  walks  in  a  pouring  rain,  swinging  his 
closed  umbrella  like  a  walking-stick  ;  wears  a  wig, 
or  a  shawl,  or  a  saddle,  or  stands  on  his  head,  and 
no  remark  is  made.  And  as  he  has  been  doing 
this  for  several  generations,  it  is  now  in  the  blood. 
In  short,  every  one  of  these  islanders  is  an  is- 
land himself,  safe,  tranquil,  incommunicable.  In  a 
company  of  strangers  you  would  think  him  deaf ; 
his  eyes  never  wander  from  his  table  and  news- 
paper. He  is  never  betrayed  into  any  curiosity  or 
unbecoming  emotion.  They  have  all  been  trained 
in  one  severe  school  of  manners,  and  never  put 
off  the  harness.  He  does  not  give  his  hand.  He 
does  not  let  you  meet  his  eye.  It  is  almost  an 
affront  to  look  a  man  in  the  face  without  being  in- 
troduced. In  mixed  or  in  select  companies  they 
do  not  introduce  persons ;  so  that  a  presentation  is 
a  circumstance  as  valid  as  a  contract.  Introduc- 
tions are  sacraments.  He  withholds  his  name.  At 
the  hotel,  he  is  hardly  willing  to  whisper  it  to  the 
clerk  at  the  book-office.  If  he  give  you  his  pri- 
vate address  on  a  card,  it  is  like  an  avowal  of 
friendship ;  and  his  bearing,  on  being  introducedt 


MANNERS.  105 

is  cold,  even  though  he  is  seeking  your  acquaint- 
ance and  is  studying  how  he  shall  serve  you. 

It  was  an  odd  proof  of  this  impressive  energy, 
that  in  my  lectures  I  hesitated  to  read  and  threw 
out  for  its  impertinence  many  a  disparaging  phrase 
which  I  had  been  accustomed  to  spin,  about  poor, 
thin,  unable  mortals ;  —  so  much  had  the  fine  phy- 
sique and  the  personal  vigor  of  this  robust  race 
worked  on  my  imagination. 

I  happened  to  arrive  in  England  at  the  moment 
of  a  commercial  crisis.  But  it  was  evident  that 
let  who  will  fail,  England  will  not.  These  people 
have  sat  here  a  thousand  years,  and  here  will  con- 
tinue to  sit.  They  will  not  break  up,  or  arrive  at 
any  desperate  revolution,  like  their  neighbors  ;  for 
they  have  as  much  energy,  as  much  continence  of 
character  as  they  ever  had.  The  power  and  pos- 
session which  surround  them  are  their  own  crea- 
tion, and  they  exert  the  same  commanding  industry 
at  this  moment. 

They  are  positive,  methodical,  cleanly  and  for- 
mal, loving  routine  and  conventional  ways  ;  loving 
truth  and  religion,  to  be  sure,  but  inexorable  on 
points  of  form.  All  the  world  praises  the  comfort 
and  private  appointments  of  an  English  inn,  and 
of  English  households.  You  are  sure  of  neatness 
and  of  personal  decorum.  A  Frenchman  may  pos- 
sibly be  clean;  an  Englishman  is  conscientiously 


106  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

clean.  A  certain  order  and  complete  propriety  ia 
found  in  his  dress  and  in  his  belongings. 

Born  in  a  harsh  and  wet  climate,  which  keeps 
him  in  doors  whenever  he  is  at  rest,  and  being  of 
an  affectionate  and  loyal  temper,  he  dearly  loves 
his  house.  If  he  is  rich,  he  buys  a  demesne  and 
builds  a  hall ;  if  he  is  in  middle  condition,  he 
spares  no  expense  on  his  house.  Without,  it  is  all 
planted ;  within,  it  is  wainscoted,  carved,  curtained, 
hung  with  pictures  and  filled  with  good  furniture. 
'T  is  a  passion  which  survives  all  others,  to  deck  and 
improve  it.  Hither  he  brings  all  that  is  rare  and 
costly,  and  with  the  national  tendency  to  sit  fast  in 
the  same  spot  for  many  generations,  it  comes  to  be, 
in  the  course  of  time,  a  museum  of  heirlooms,  gifts 
and  trophies  of  the  adventures  and  exploits  of  the 
family.  He  is  very  fond  of  silver  plate,  and  though 
he  have  no  gallery  of  portraits  of  his  ancestors,  he 
has  of  their  punch-bowls  and  porringers.  Incred- 
ible amounts  of  plate  are  found  in  good  houses, 
and  the  poorest  have  some  spoon  or  saucepan,  gift 
of  a  godmother,  saved  out  of  better  times. 

An  English  family  consists  of  a  few  persons, 
who,  from  youth  to  age,  are  found  revolving  within 
a  few  feet  of  each  other,  as  if  tied  by  some  invisible 
ligature,  tense  as  that  cartilage  which  we  have  seen 
attaching  the  two  Siamese.  England  produces 
under  favorable  conditions  of  ease  and  culture  the 


MANNERS.  107 

finest  women  in  tho  world.  And  as  the  men  are 
affectionate  and  true-hearted,  the  women  inspire 
and  refine  them.  Nothing  can  be  more  delicate 
without  being  fantastical,  nothing  more  firm  and 
based  in  nature  and  sentiment,  than  the  courtship 
and  mutual  carriage  of  the  sexes.  The  song  of 
1596  says,  "The  wife  of  every  Englishman  is 
counted  blest."  The  sentiment  of  Imogen  in  Cym- 
beline  is  copied  from  English  nature ;  and  not  less 
the  Portia  of  Brutus,  the  Kate  Percy  and  the  Des 
demona.  The  romance  does  not  exceed  the  height 
of  noble  passion  in  Mrs.  Lucy  Hutchinson,  or  in 
Lady  Russell,  or  even  as  one  discerns  through  the 
plain  prose  of  Pepys's  Diary,  the  sacred  habit  of  an 
English  wife.  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  could  not  bear 
the  death  of  his  wife.  Every  class  has  its  noble 
and  tender  examples. 

Domesticity  is  the  taproot  which  enables  the 
nation  to  branch  wide  and  high.  The  motive  and 
end  of  their  trade  and  empire  is  to  guard  the  inde- 
pendence and  privacy  of  their  homes.  Nothing  so 
much  marks  their  manners  as  the  concentration  on 
their  household  ties.  This  domesticity  is  carried 
into  court  and  camp.  Wellington  governed  India 
and  Spain  and  his  own  troops,  and  fought  battles, 
like  a  good  family-man,  paid  his  debts,  and  though 
general  of  an  army  in  Spain,  could  not  stir  abroad. 
for  fear  of  public  creditors.  This  taste  for  house 


108  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

and  parish  merits  has  of  course  its  doting  and  fool- 
ish side.  Mr.  Cobbett  attributes  the  huge  popular- 
ity of  Perceval,  prime  minister  in  1810,  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  wont  to  go  to  church  every  Sunday, 
with  a  large  quarto  gilt  prayer-book  under  one  arm, 
his  wife  hanging  on  the  other,  and  followed  by  a 
long  brood  of  children. 

They  keep  their  old  customs,  costumes,  and  pomps, 
their  wig  and  mace,  sceptre  and  crown.  The  Mid- 
dle Ages  still  lurk  in  the  streets  of  London.  The 
Knights  of  the  Bath  take  oath  to  defend  injured 
ladies;  the  gold-stick-in-waiting  survives.  They 
repeated  the  ceremonies  of  the  eleventh  century  in 
the  coronation  of  the  present  Queen.  A  hereditary 
tenure  is  natural  to  them.  Offices,  farms,  trades 
and  traditions  descend  so.  Their  leases  run  for  a 
hundred  and  a  thousand  years.  Terms  of  service 
and  partnership  are  life-long,  or  are  inherited. 
"  Holdship  has  been  with  me,"  said  Lord  Eldon, 
"  eight-and-twenty  years,  knows  all  my  business  and 
books."  Antiquity  of  usage  is  sanction  enough. 
Wordsworth  says  of  the  small  freeholders  of  West- 
moreland, "  Many  of  these  humble  sons  of  the  hills 
had  a  consciousness  that  the  land  which  they  tilled 
had  for  more  than  five  hundred  years  been  possessed 
by  men  of  the  same  name  and  blood."  The  ship- 
carpenter  in  the  public  yards,  my  lord's  gardener 
and  porter,  have  been  there  for  more  than  a  hun- 
dred years,  grandfather,  father,  and  son. 


MANNERS.  109 

The  English  power  resides  also  in  their  dislike 
of  change.  They  have  difficulty  in  bringing  their 
reason  to  act,  and  on  all  occasions  use  their  mem- 
ory first.  As  soon  as  they  have  rid  themselves  of 
some  grievance  and  settled  the  better  practice,  they 
make  haste  to  fix  it  as  a  finality,  and  never  wish 
to  hear  of  alteration  more. 

Every  Englishman  is  an  embryonic  chancellor : 
his  instinct  is  to  search  for  a  precedent.  The  fa- 
vorite phrase  of  their  law  is,  "a  custom  whereof 
the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  back  to  the  con- 
trary." The  barons  say,  "  Nolumus  mutari  ;  "  and 
the  cockneys  stifle  the  curiosity  of  the  foreigner  on 
the  reason  of  any  practice  with  "  Lord,  sir,  it  was 
always  so."  They  hate  innovation.  Bacon  told 
them,  Time  was  the  right  reformer ;  Chatham,  that 
"  confidence  was  a  plant  of  slow  growth  ;  "  Canning, 
to  "advance  with  the  times;  "  and  Wellington,  that 
"habit  was  ten  times  nature."  All  their  states- 
men learn  the  irresistibility  of  the  tide  of  custom, 
and  have  invented  many  fine  phrases  to  cover  this 
slowness  of  perception  and  prehensility  of  tail. 

A  sea-shell  should  be  the  crest  of  England,  not 
only  because  it  represents  a  power  built  on  the 
waves,  but  also  the  hard  finish  of  the  men.  The 
Englishman  is  finished  like  a  cowry  or  a  murex. 
After  the  spire  and  the  spines  are  formed,  or  with 
the  formation,  a  juice  exudes  and  a  hard  enamel 


110  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

varnishes  every  part.  The  keeping  of  the  propri- 
eties is  as  indispensable  as  clean  linen.  No  merit 
quite  countervails  the  want  of  this,  whilst  this  some- 
times stands  in  lieu  of  all.  "  'T  is  in  bad  taste," 
is  the  most  formidable  word  an  Englishman  can 
pronounce.  But  this  japan  costs  them  dear.  There 
is  a  prose  in  certain  Englishmen  which  exceeds  in 
wooden  deadness  all  rivalry  with  other  countrymen. 
There  is  a  knell  in  the  conceit  and  externality  of 
their  voice,  which  seems  to  say,  Leave  all  hope  be- 
hind. In  this  Gibraltar  of  propriety,  mediocrity 
gets  intrenched  and  consolidated  and  founded  in 
adamant.  An  Englishman  of  fashion  is  like  one 
of  those  souvenirs,  bound  in  gold  vellum,  enriched 
with  delicate  engravings  on  thick  hot-pressed  pa- 
per, fit  for  the  hands  of  ladies  and  princes,  but  with 
nothing  in  it  worth  reading  or  remembering. 

A  severe  decorum  rules  the  court  and  the  cot- 
tage. When  Thalberg  the  pianist  was  one  evening 
performing  before  the  Queen  at  Windsor,  in  a  pri- 
vate party,  the  Queen  accompanied  him  with  her 
voice.  The  circumstance  took  air,  and  all  England 
shuddered  from  sea  to  sea.  The  indecorum  was 
never  repeated.  Cold,  repressive  manners  prevail. 
No  enthusiasm  is  permitted  except  at  the  opera. 
They  avoid  every  thing  marked.  They  require  a 
tone  of  voice  that  excites  no  attention  in  the  room. 
Sir  Philip  Sidney  is  one  of  the  patron  saints  of 


MANNERS.  Ill 

England,  of  whom  Wotton  said,  "  His  wit  was  the 
measure  of  congruity." 

Pretension  and  vaporing  are  once  for  all  dis- 
tasteful. They  keep  to  the  other  extreme  of  low 
tone  in  dress  and  manners.  They  avoid  pretension 
and  go  right  to  the  heart  of  the  thing.  They  hate 
nonsense,  sentimentalism  and  highflown  expres- 
sion ;  they  use  a  studied  plainness.  Even  Brum- 
mel,  their  fop,  was  marked  by  the  severest  sim- 
plicity in  dress.  They  value  themselves  on  the 
absence  of  every  thing  theatrical  in  the  public 
business,  and  on  conciseness  and  going  to  the  point, 
in  private  affairs. 

In  an  aristocratical  country  like  England,  not 
the  Trial  by  Jury,  but  the  dinner,  is  the  capital 
institution.  It  is  the  mode  of  doing  honor  to  a 
stranger,  to  invite  him  to  eat,  —  and  has  been  for 
many  hundred  years.  "  And  they  think,"  says  the 
Venetian  traveller  of  1500,  "  no  greater  honor  can 
be  conferred  or  received,  than  to  invite  others  to 
eat  with  them,  or  to  be  invited  themselves,  and 
they  would  sooner  give  five  or  six  ducats  to  pro- 
vide an  entertainment  for  a  person,  than  a  groat 
to  assist  him  in  any  distress." l  It  is  reserved  to 
the  end  of  the  day,  the  family-hour  being  generally 
six,  in  London,  and  if  any  company  is  expected, 
one  or  two  hours  later.  Every  one  dresses  for  din- 

1  Relation  of  England.     Printed  by  the  Camdeu  Society. 


112  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

ner,  in  his  own  house,  or  in  another  man's.  The 
guests  are  expected  to  arrive  within  half  an  hour 
of  the  time  fixed  by  card  of  invitation,  and  nothing 
but  death  or  mutilation  is  permitted  to  detain  them. 
The  English  dinner  is  precisely  the  model  on  which 
our  own  are  constructed  in  the  Atlantic  cities.  The 
company  sit  one  or  two  hours  before  the  ladies 
leave  the  table.  The  gentlemen  remain  over  their 
wine  an  hour  longer,  and  rejoin  the  ladies  in  the 
drawing-room  and  take  coffee.  The  dress-dinner 
generates  a  talent  of  table-talk  which  reaches  great 
perfection :  the  stories  are  so  good  that  one  is  sure 
they  must  have  been  often  told  before,  to  have  got 
such  happy  turns.  Hither  come  all  manner  of 
clever  projects,  bits  of  popular  science,  of  practical 
invention,  of  miscellaneous  humor;  political,  liter- 
ary and  personal  news  ;  railroads,  horses,  diamonds, 
agriculture,  horticulture,  pisciculture  and  wine. 

English  stories,  bon  -  mots  and  the  recorded  ta- 
ble-talk of  their  wits,  are  as  good  as  the  best  of  the 
French.  In  America,  we  are  apt  scholars,  but 
have  not  yet  attained  the  same  perfection :  for  the 
range  of  nations  from  which  London  draws,  and 
the  steep  contrasts  of  condition,  create  the  pictur- 
esque in  society,  as  broken  country  makes  pictur- 
esque landscape;  whilst  our  prevailing  equality 
makes  a  prairie  tameness:  and  secondly,  because 
the  usage  of  a  dress-dinner  every  day  at  dark  has  a 


MANNERS.  113 

tendency  to  hive  and  produce  to  advantage  every 
thing  good.  Much  attrition  has  worn  every  sen- 
tence into  a  bullet.  Also  one  meets  now  and  then 
with  polished  men  who  know  every  thing,  have 
tried  every  thing,  and  can  do  every  thing,  and  are 
quite  superior  to  letters  and  science.  What  could 
they  not,  if  only  they  would  ? 


CHAPTER  VH. 

TRUTH. 

THE  Teutonic  tribes  have  a  national  singleness 
of  heart,  which  contrasts  with  the  Latin  races. 
The  German  name  has  a  proverbial  significance  of 
sincerity  and  honest  meaning.  The  arts  bear  tes- 
timony to  it.  The  faces  of  clergy  and  laity  in  old 
sculptures  and  illuminated  missals  are  charged  with 
earnest  belief.  Add  to  this  hereditary  rectitude 
the  punctuality  and  precise  dealing  which  com- 
merce creates,  and  you  have  the  English  truth  and 
credit.  The  government  strictly  performs  its  en- 
gagements. The  subjects  do  not  understand  tri- 
fling on  its  part.  When  any  breach  of  promise 
occurred,  in  the  old  days  of  prerogative,  it  was 
resented  by  the  people  as  an  intolerable  grievance. 
And  in  modern  times,  any  slipperiness  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  political  faith,  or  any  repudiation  or 
crookedness  in  matters  of  finance,  would  bring  the 
whole  nation  to  a  committee  of  inquiry  and  reform. 
Private  men  keep  their  promises,  never  so  trivial. 
Down  goes  the  flying  word  on  the  tablets,  and  is 
indelible  as  Domesday  Book. 


TRUTH.  115 

Their  practical  power  rests  on  their  national  sin- 
cerity. Veracity  derives  from  instinct,  and  marks 
superiority  in  organization.  Nature  has  endowed 
some  animals  with  cunning,  as  a  compensation  for 
strength  withheld  ;  but  it  has  provoked  the  malice 
of  all  others,  as  if  avengers  of  public  wrong.  In 
the  nobler  kinds,  where  strength  could  be  afforded, 
her  races  are  loyal  to  truth,  as  truth  is  the  founda- 
tion of  the  social  state.  Beasts  that  make  no  truce 
with  man,  do  not  break  faith  with  each  other.  'T  is 
said  that  the  wolf,  who  makes  a  cache  of  his  prey 
and  brings  his  fellows  with  him  to  the  spot,  if,  on 
digging,  it  is  not  found,  is  instantly  and  unresist- 
ingly torn  in  pieces.  English  veracity  seems  to 
result  on  a  sounder  animal  structure,  as  if  they 
could  afford  it.  They  are  blunt  in  saying  what 
they  think,  sparing  of  promises,  and  they  require 
plain  dealing  of  others.  We  will  not  have  to  do 
with  a  man  in  a  mask.  Let  us  know  the  truth. 
Draw  a  straight  line,  hit  whom  and  where  it  will. 
Alfred,  whom  the  affection  of  the  nation  makes  the 
type  of  their  race,  is  called  by  a  writer  at  the  Nor- 
man Conquest,  the  truth-speaker;  Alueredus  verid- 
icus.  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  says  of  King  Aurelius, 
uncle  of  Arthur,  that  "  above  all  things  he  hated  a 
lie."  The  Northman  Guttorm  said  to  King  Olaf, 
"  It  is  royal  work  to  fulfil  royal  words."  The  mot* 
toes  of  their  families  are  monitory  proverbs,  as, 


116  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Farefac,  —  Say,  do,  —  of  the  Fairfaxes  ;  Say  and 
seal,  of  the  house  of  Fiennes ;  Vero  nil  verius,  of 
the  De Veres.  To  be  king  of  their  word  is  their 
pride.  When  they  unmask  cant,  they  say,  "  The 
English  of  this  is,"  &c. ;  and  to  give  the  lie  is  the 
extreme  insult.  The  phrase  of  the  lowest  of  the 
people  is  "  honor-bright,"  and  their  vulgar  praise, 
"His  word  is  as  good  as  his  bond."  They  hate 
shuffling  and  equivocation,  and  the  cause  is  dam- 
aged in  the  public  opinion,  on  which  any  palter- 
ing can  be  fixed.  Even  Lord  Chesterfield,  with 
his  French  breeding,  when  he  came  to  define  a 
gentleman,  declared  that  truth  made  his  distinc- 
tion ;  and  nothing  ever  spoken  by  him  would  find 
so  hearty  a  suffrage  from  his  nation.  The  Duke 
of  Wellington,  who  had  the  best  right  to  say  so, 
advises  the  French  General  Kellermann  that  he 
may  rely  on  the  parole  of  an  English  officer.  The 
English,  of  all  classes,  value  themselves  on  this 
trait,  as  distinguishing  them  from  the  French, 
who,  in  the  popular  belief,  are  more  polite  than 
true.  An  Englishman  understates,  avoids  the  su- 
perlative, checks  himself  in  compliments,  alleging 
that  in  the  French  language  one  cannot  speak  with- 
out lying. 

They  love  reality  in  wealth,  power,  hospitality, 
and  do  not  easily  learn  to  make  a  show,  and  take 
the  world  as  it  goes.  They  are  not  fond  of  orna« 


TRUTH.  117 

ments,  and  if  they  wear  them,  they  must  be  gems. 
They  read  gladly  in  old  Fuller  that  a  lady,  in  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  "would  have  as  patiently  di- 
gested a  lie,  as  the  wearing  of  false  stones  or  pen- 
dants of  counterfeit  pearl."  They  have  the  earth- 
hunger,  or  preference  for  property  in  land,  which 
is  said  to  mark  the  Teutonic  nations.  They  build 
of  stone  :  public  and  private  buildings  are  massive 
and  durable.  In  comparing  their  ships'  houses 
and  public  offices  with  the  American,  it  is  com- 
monly said  that  they  spend  a  pound  where  we 
spend  a  dollar.  Plain  rich  clothes,  plain  rich 
equipage,  plain  rich  finish  throughout  their  house 
and  belongings  mark  the  English  truth. 

They  confide  in  each  other,  —  English  believes 
in  English.  The  French  feel  the  superiority  of 
this  probity.  The  Englishman  is  not  springing  a 
trap  for  his  admiration,  but  is  honestly  minding  his 
business.  The  Frenchman  is  vain.  Madame  de 
Stael  says  that  the  English  irritated  Napoleon, 
mainly  because  they  have  found  out  how  to  unite 
success  with  honesty.  She  was  not  aware  how 
wide  an  application  her  foreign  readers  would  give 
to  the  remark.  Wellington  discovered  the  ruin 
of  Bonaparte's  affairs,  by  his  own  probity.  He 
augured  ill  of  the  empire,  as  soon  as  he  saw  that 
it  was  mendacious  and  lived  by  war.  If  war  do 
not  bring  in  its  sequel  new  trade,  better  agricul- 


118  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

ture  and  manufactures,  but  only  games,  fireworks 
and  spectacles,  —  no  prosperity  could  support  it  ; 
much  less  a  nation  decimated  for  conscripts  and 
out  of  pocket,  like  France.  So  he  drudged  for 
years  on  his  military  works  at  Lisbon,  and  from 
this  base  at  last  extended  his  gigantic  lines  to 
Waterloo,  believing  in  his  countrymen  and  their 
syllogisms  above  all  the  rhodomontade  of  Eu- 
rope. 

At  a  St.  George's  festival,  in  Montreal,  where  I 
happened  to  be  a  guest  since  my  return  home,  I 
observed  that  the  chairman  complimented  his  com- 
patriots, by  saying,  "  they  confided  that  wherever 
they  met  an  Englishman,  they  found  a  man  who 
would  speak  the  truth."  And  one  cannot  think 
this  festival  fruitless,  if,  all  over  the  world,  on  the 
23d  of  April,  wherever  two  or  three  English  are 
found,  they  meet  to  encourage  each  other  in  the 
nationality  of  veracity. 

In  the  power  of  saying  rude  truth,  sometimes  in 
the  lion's  mouth,  no  men  surpass  them.  On  the 
king's  birthday,  when  each  bishop  was  expected  to 
offer  the  king  a  purse  of  gold,  Latimer  gave  Henry 
VIII.  a  copy  of  the  Vulgate,  with  a  mark  at  the 
passage,  "  Whoremongers  and  adulterers  God  will 
judge  ;  "  and  they  so  honor  stoutness  in  each  other 
that  the  king  passed  it  over.  They  are  tenacious 
of  their  belief  and  cannot  easily  change  their  opin. 


TRUTH.  119 

ions  to  suit  the  hour.  They  are  like  ships  with  too 
much  head  on  to  come  quickly  about,  nor  will  pros- 
perity or  even  adversity  be  allowed  to  shake  their 
habitual  view  of  conduct.  Whilst  I  was  in  Lon- 
don, M.  Guizot  arrived  there  on  his  escape  from 
Paris,  in  February,  1848.  Many  private  friends 
called  on  him.  His  name  was  immediately  pro- 
posed as  an  honorary  member  of  the  Athenaum. 
M.  Guizot  was  blackballed.  Certainly  they  knew 
the  distinction  of  his  name.  But  the  Englishman 
is  not  fickle.  He  had  really  made  up  his  mind  now 
for  years  as  he  read  his  newspaper,  to  hate  and  de- 
spise M.  Guizot;  and  the  altered  position  of  the 
man  as  an  illustrious  exile  and  a  guest  in  the  coun- 
try, makes  no  difference  to  him,  as  it  would  in- 
stantly to  an  American. 

They  require  the  same  adherence,  thorough  con- 
viction and  reality,  in  public  men.  It  is  the  want 
of  character  which  makes  the  low  reputation  of  the 
Irish  members.  "  See  them,"  they  said,  "  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-seven  all  voting  like  sheep,  never 
proposing  any  thing,  and  all  but  four  voting  the 
income  tax,"  —  which  was  an  ill-judged  conces- 
sion of  the  government,  relieving  Irish  property 
from  the  burdens  charged  on  English. 

They  have  a  horror  of  adventurers  in  or  out  of 
Parliament.  The  ruling  passion  of  Englishmen  in 
these  days  is  a  terror  of  humbug.  In  the  same 


120  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

proportion  they  value  honesty,  stoutness,  and  ad- 
herence to  your  own.  They  like  a  man  committed 
to  his  objects.  They  hate  the  French,  as  frivolous  ; 
they  hate  the  Irish,  as  aimless  ;  they  hate  the  Ger- 
mans, as  professors.  In  February  1848,  they  said, 
Look,  the  French  king  and  his  party  fell  for  want 
of  a  shot ;  they  had  not  conscience  to  shoot,  so 
entirely  was  the  pith  and  heart  of  monarchy  eaten 
out. 

They  attack  their  own  politicians  every  day, 
on  the  same  grounds,  as  adventurers.  They  love 
stoutness  in  standing  for  your  right,  in  declining 
money  or  promotion  that  costs  any  concession. 
The  barrister  refuses  the  silk  gown  of  Queen's 
Counsel,  if  his  junior  have  it  one  day  earlier. 
Lord  Collingwood  would  not  accept  his  medal  for 
victory  on  14th  February,  1797,  if  he  did  not  re- 
ceive one  for  victory  on  1st  June,  1794 ;  and  the 
long  withholden  medal  was  accorded.  When  Cas- 
tlereagh  dissuaded  Lord  Wellington  from  going  to 
the  king's  levee  until  the  unpopular  Cintra  busi- 
ness had  been  explained,  he  replied,  "  You  furnish 
me  a  reason  for  going.  I  will  go  to  this,  or  I  will 
never  go  to  a  king's  levee."  The  radical  mob  at 
Oxford  cried  after  the  tory  Lord  Eldon,  "  There  's 
old  Eldon ;  cheer  him ;  he  never  ratted."  They 
have  given  the  parliamentary  nickname  of  Trim- 


TRUTH.  121 

mers  to  the  timeservers,  whom  English  character 
does  not  love.1 

They  are  very  liable  in  their  politics  to  extraor- 
dinary delusions  ;  thus  to  believe  what  stands  re- 
corded in  the  gravest  books,  that  the  movement  of 
10  April,  1848,  was  urged  or  assisted  by  foreigners : 
which,  to  be  sure,  is  paralleled  by  the  democratic 
whimsy  in  this  country  which  I  have  noticed  to  be 
shared  by  men  sane  on  other  points,  that  the  Eng- 
lish are  at  the  bottom  of  the  agitation  of  slav- 
ery, in  American  politics :  and  then  again  by  the 
French  popular  legends  on  the  subject  of  perfidi- 
ous Albion.  But  suspicion  will  make  fools  of  na- 
tions as  of  citizens. 

A  slow  temperament  makes  them  less  rapid  and 
ready  than  other  countrymen,  and  has  given  occa- 
sion to  the  observation  that  English  wit  comes 
afterwards,  —  which  the  French  denote  as  esprit 
cTescalier.  This  dulness  makes  their  attachment 

1  It  is  an  unlucky  moment  to  remember  these  sparkles  of 
solitary  virtue  in  the  face  of  the  honors  lately  paid  in  Eng- 
land to  the  Emperor  Louis  Napoleon.  I  am  sure  that  no 
Englishman  whom  I  had  the  happiness  to  know,  consented, 
when  the  aristocracy  and  the  commons  of  London  cringed  like 
a  Neapolitan  rabble,  before  a  successful  thief.  But,  —  how 
to  resist  one  step,  though  odious,  in  a  linked  series  of  state 
necessities  ?  Governments  must  always  learn  too  late,  that 
the  use  of  dishonest  agents  is  as  ruinous  for  nations  as  for 
single  men. 


122  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

to  home  and  their  adherence  in  all  foreign  coun- 
tries to  home  habits.  The  Englishman  who  visits 
Mount  Etna  will  carry  his  teakettle  to  the  top. 
The  old  Italian  author  of  the  "  Relation  of  Eng- 
land "  (in  1500),  says,  "  I  have  it  on  the  best  in- 
formation, that,  when  the  war  is  actually  raging 
most  furiously,  they  will  seek  for  good  eating  and 
all  their  other  comforts,  without  thinking  what 
harm  might  befall  them."  Then  their  eyes  seem 
to  be  set  at  the  bottom  of  a  tunnel,  and  they  affirm 
the  one  small  fact  they  know,  with  the  best  faith 
in  the  world  that  nothing  else  exists.  And  as  their 
own  belief  in  guineas  is  perfect,  they  readily,  on  all 
occasions,  apply  the  pecuniary  argument  as  final. 
Thus  when  the  Rochester  rappings  began  to  be  heard 
of  in  England,  a  man  deposited  £100  in  a  sealed 
box  in  the  Dublin  Bank,  and  then  advertised  in  the 
newspapers  to  all  somnambulists,  mesmerizers  and 
others,  that  whoever  could  tell  him  the  number  of 
his  note  should  have  the  money.  He  let  it  lie  there 
six  months,  the  newspapers  now  and  then,  at  his 
instance,  stimulating  the  attention  of  the  adepts ; 
but  none  could  ever  tell  him ;  and  he  said,  "  Now 
let  me  never  be  bothered  more  with  this  proven 
lie."  It  is  told  of  a  good  Sir  John  that  he  heard  a 
case  stated  by  counsel,  and  made  up  his  mind  ;  then 
the  counsel  for  the  other  side  taking  their  turn  to 
speak,  he  found  himself  so  unsettled  and  perplexed 


TRUTH.  123 

that  he  exclaimed,  "  So  help  me  God !  I  will  never 
listen  to  evidence  again."  Any  number  of  delight- 
ful examples  of  this  English  stolidity  are  the  anec- 
dotes of  Europe.  I  knew  a  very  worthy  man,  —  a 
magistrate,  I  believe  he  was,  in  the  town  of  Derby, 
—  who  went  to  the  opera  to  see  Malibran.  In  one 
scene,  the  heroine  was  to  rush  across  a  ruined 
bridge.  Mr.  B.  arose  and  mildly  yet  firmly  called 
the  attention  of  the  audience  and  the  performers  to 
the  fact  that,  in  his  judgment,  the  bridge  was  un- 
safe !  This  English  stolidity  contrasts  with  French 
wit  and  tact.  The  French,  it  is  commonly  said, 
have  greatly  more  influence  in  Europe  than  the 
English.  What  influence  the  English  have  is  by 
brute  force  of  wealth  and  power ;  that  of  the  French 
by  affinity  and  talent.  The  Italian  is  subtle,  the 
Spaniard  treacherous  :  tortures,  it  is  said,  could 
never  wrest  from  an  Egyptian  the  confession  of  a 
secret.  .  None  of  these  traits  belong  to  the  English- 
man. His  choler  and  conceit  force  every  thing 
out.  Defoe,  who  knew  his  countrymen  well,  says 
of  them,  — 

"  In  close  intrigue,  their  faculty 's  but  weak, 
For  generally  whate'er  they  know,  they  speak, 
And  often  their  own  counsels  undermine 
By  mere  infirmity  without  design  ; 
From  whence,  the  learned  say,  it  doth  proceed, 
That  English  treasons  never  can  succeed ; 
For  they  're  so  open-hearted,  you  may  know 
Their  own  most  secret  thoughts,  and  others'  too. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

CHARACTER. 

THE  English  race  are  reputed  morose.  I  do  not 
know  that  they  have  sadder  brows  than  their  neigh- 
bors of  northern  climates.  They  are  sad  by  com- 
parison with  the  singing  and  dancing  nations :  not 
sadder,  but  slow  and  staid,  as  finding  their  joys  at 
home.  They,  too,  believe  that  where  there  is  no 
enjoyment  of  life  there  can  be  no  vigor  and  art  in 
speech  or  thought ;  that  your  merry  heart  goes  all 
the  way,  your  sad  one  tires  in  a  mile.  This  trait 
of  gloom  has  been  fixed  on  them  by  French  travel- 
lers, who,  from  Froissart,  Voltaire,  Le  Sage,  Mira- 
beau,  down  to  the  lively  journalists  of  the  feuille- . 
tons,  have  spent  their  wit  on  the  solemnity  of  their 
neighbors.  The  French  say,  gay  conversation  is 
unknown  in  their  island.  The  Englishman  finds 
no  relief  from  reflection,  except  in  reflection. 
When  he  wishes  for  amusement,  he  goes  to  work. 
His  hilarity  is  like  an  attack  of  fever.  Religion, 
the  theatre  and  the  reading  the  books  of  his  coun- 
try all  feed  and  increase  his  natural  melancholy. 
The  police  does  not  interfere  with  public  diversions. 


CHARACTER.  125 

It  thinks  itself  bound  in  duty  to  respect  the  pleas- 
ures and  rare  gayety  of  this  inconsolable  nation ; 
and  their  well-known  courage  is  entirely  attribu- 
table to  their  disgust  of  life. 

I  suppose  their  gravity  of  demeanor  and  their 
few  words  have  obtained  this  reputation.  As  com- 
pared with  the  Americans,  I  think  them  cheerful 
and  contented.  Young  people  in  this  country  are 
much  more  prone  to  melancholy.  The  English 
have  a  mild  aspect  and  a  ringing  cheerful  voice. 
They  are  large-natured  and  not  so  easily  amused 
as  the  southerners,  and  are  among  them  as  grown 
people  among  children,  requiring  war,  or  trade,  or 
engineering,  or  science,  instead  of  frivolous  games. 
They  are  proud  and  private,  and  even  if  disposed 
to  recreation,  will  avoid  an  open  garden.  They 
sported  sadly ;  Us  s'amusaient  tristement,  selon  la 
coutume  de  leur  pays,  said  Froissart ;  and  I  sup- 
pose never  nation  built  their  party-walls  so  thick, 
or  their  garden-fences  so  high.  Meat  and  wine 
produce  no  effect  on  them.  They  are  just  as  cold, 
quiet  and  composed,  at  the  end,  as  at  the  beginning 
of  dinner. 

The  reputation  of  taciturnity  they  have  enjoyed 
for  six  or  seven  hundred  years;  and  a  kind  of 
pride  in  bad  public  speaking  is  noted  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  as  if  they  were  willing  to  show  that 
they  did  not  live  by  their  tongues,  or  thought  they 


126  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

spoke  well  enough  if  they  had  the  tone  of  gentle- 
men. In  mixed  company  they  shut  their  mouths. 
A  Yorkshire  mill-owner  told  me  he  had  ridden 
more  than  once  all  the  way  from  London  to  Leeds, 
in  the  first-class  carriage,  with  the  same  persons, 
and  no  word  exchanged.  The  club-houses  were 
established  to  cultivate  social  habits,  and  it  is  rare 
that  more  than  two  eat  together,  and  oftenest  one 
eats  alone.  Was  it  then  a  stroke  of  humor  in  the 
serious  Swedenborg,  or  was  it  only  his  pitiless 
logic,  that  made  him  shut  up  the  English  souls  in 
a  heaven  by  themselves  ? 

They  are  contradictorily  described  as  sour,  sple- 
netic and  stubborn,  —  and  as  mild,  sweet  and  sen- 
sible. The  truth  is  they  have  great  range  and 
variety  of  character.  Commerce  sends  abroad 
multitudes  of  different  classes.  The  choleric 
Welshman,  the  fervid  Scot,  the  bilious  resident  in 
the  East  or  West  Indies,  are  wide  of  the  perfect 
behavior  of  the  educated  and  dignified  man  of 
family.  So  is  the  burly  farmer ;  so  is  the  country 
squire,  with  his  narrow  and  violent  life.  In  every 
inn  is  the  Commercial-Room,  in  which  '  travellers,' 
or  bagmen  who  carry  patterns  and  solicit  orders 
for  the  manufacturers,  are  wont  to  be  entertained. 
It  easily  happens  that  this  class  should  character- 
ize England  to  the  foreigner,  who  meets  them  on 
the  road,  and  at  every  public  house,  whilst  the  gen- 


CHARACTER.  127 

try  avoid  the  taverns,  or  seclude  themselves  whilst 
in  them. 

But  these  classes  are  the  right  English  stock, 
and  may  fairly  show  the  national  qualities,  before 
yet  art  and  education  have  dealt  with  them.  They 
are  good  lovers,  good  haters,  slow  but  obstinate 
admirers,  and  in  all  things  very  much  steeped  in 
their  temperament,  like  men  hardly  awaked  from 
deep  sleep,  which  they  enjoy.  Their  habits  and 
instincts  cleave  to  nature.  They  are  of  the  earth, 
earthy ;  and  of  the  sea,  as  the  sea-kinds,  attached 
to  it  for  what  it  yields  them,  and  not  from  any 
sentiment.  They  are  full  of  coarse  strength,  rude 
exercise,  butcher's  meat  and  sound  sleep ;  and  sus- 
pect any  poetic  insinuation  or  any  hint  for  the  con- 
duct of  life  which  reflects  on  this  animal  existence, 
as  if  somebody  were  fumbling  at  the  umbilical 
cord  and  might  stop  their  supplies.  They  doubt 
a  man's  sound  judgment  if  he  does  not  eat  with 
appetite,  and  shake  their  heads  if  he  is  particularly 
chaste.  Take  them  as  they  come,  you  shall  find 
in  the  common  people  a  surly  indifference,  some- 
times gruffness  and  ill  temper ;  and  in  minds  of 
more  power,  magazines  of  inexhaustible  war,  chal- 
lenging 

"  The  ruggedest  hour  that  time  and  spite  dare  bring 
To  frown  upon  the  enraged  Northumberland." 

They  are   headstrong  believers  and  defenders  of 


128  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

their  opinion,  and  not  less  resolute  in  maintaining 
their  whim  and  perversity.  Hezekiah  Woodward 
wrote  a  book  against  the  Lord's  Prayer.  And 
one  can  believe  that  Burton,  the  Anatomist  of 
Melancholy,  having  predicted  from  the  stars  the 
hour  of  his  death,  slipped  the  knot  himself  round 
his  own  neck,  not  to  falsify  his  horoscope. 

Their  looks  bespeak  an  invincible  stoutness : 
they  have  extreme  difficulty  to  run  away,  and  will 
die  game.  Wellington  said  of  the  young  coxcombs 
of  the  Life-Guards,  delicately  brought  up,  "But 
the  puppies  fight  well ; "  and  Nelson  said  of  his 
sailors,  "They  really  mind  shot  no  more  than 
peas."  Of  absolute  stoutness  no  nation  has  more 
or  better  examples.  They  are  good  at  storming 
redoubts,  at  boarding  frigates,  at  dying  in  the  last 
ditch,  or  any  desperate  service  which  has  daylight 
and  honor  in  it ;  but  not,  I  think,  at  enduring  the 
rack,  or  any  passive  obedience,  like  jumping  off  a 
castle-roof  at  the  word  of  a  czar.  Being  both  vas- 
cular and  highly  organized,  so  as  to  be  very  sensi- 
ble of  pain;  and  intellectual,  so  as  to  see  reason 
and  glory  in  a  matter. 

Of  that  constitutional  force  which  yields  the  sup- 
plies of  the  day,  they  have  the  more  than  enough ; 
the  excess  which  creates  courage  on  fortitude,  genius 
in  poetry,  invention  in  mechanics,  enterprise  in 
trade,  magnificence  in  wealth,  splendor  in  ceremo- 


CHARACTER.  129 

nies,  petulance  and  projects  in  youth.  The  young 
men  have  a  rude  health  which  runs  into  peccant 
humors.  They  drink  brandy  like  water,  cannot 
expend  their  quantities  of  waste  strength  on  riding, 
hunting,  swimming  and  fencing,  and  run  into  absurd 
frolics  with  the  gravity  of  the  Eumenides.  They 
stoutly  carry  into  every  nook  and  corner  of  the 
earth  their  turbulent  sense ;  leaving  no  lie  uncon- 
tradicted  ;  no  pretension  unexamined.  They  chew 
hasheesh;  cut  themselves  with  poisoned  creases; 
swing  their  hammock  in  the  boughs  of  the  Bohon 
Upas ;  taste  every  poison ;  buy  every  secret ;  at 
Naples  they  put  St.  Januarius's  blood  in  an  alem- 
bic ;  they  saw  a  hole  into  the  head  of  the  "  winking 
Virgin,"  to  know  why  she  winks  ;  measure  with  an 
English  footrule  every  cell  of  the  Inquisition,  every 
Turkish  caaba,  every  Holy  of  holies ;  translate  and 
send  to  Bentley  the  arcanum  bribed  and  bullied 
away  from  shuddering  Bramins ;  and  measure  their 
own  strength  by  the  terror  they  cause.  These  trav- 
ellers are  of  every  class,  the  best  and  the  worst ;  and 
it  may  easily  happen  that  those  of  rudest  behavior 
are  taken  notice  of  and  remembered.  The  Saxon 
melancholy  in  the  vulgar  rich  and  poor  appears  as 
gushes  of  ill-humor,  which  every  check  exasperates 
into  sarcasm  and  vituperation.  There  are  multi- 
tudes of  rude  young  English  who  have  the  self- 
sufficiency  and  bluntness  of  their  nation,  and  who, 


130  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

with  their  disdain  of  the  rest  of  mankind  and  with 
this  indigestion  and  choler,  have  made  the  English 
traveller  a  proverb  for  uncomfortable  and  offensive 
manners.  It  was  no  bad  description  of  the  Briton 
generically,  what  was  said  two  hundred  years  ago 
of  one  particular  Oxford  scholar :  "  He  was  a  very 
bold  man,  uttered  any  thing  that  came  into  his 
mind,  not  only  among  his  companions,  but  in  pub- 
lic coffee-houses,  and  would  often  speak  his  mind 
of  particular  persons  then  accidentally,  present, 
without  examining  the  company  he  was  in;  for 
which  he  was  often  reprimanded  and  several  times 
threatened  to  be  kicked  and  beaten." 

The  common  Englishman  is  prone  to  forget  a 
cardinal  article  in  the  bill  of  social  rights,  that 
every  man  has  a  right  to  his  own  ears.  No  man 
can  claim  to  usurp  more  than  a  few  cubic  feet  of 
the  audibilities  of  a  public  room,  or  to  put  upon 
the  company  with  the  loud  statement  of  his  crotch- 
ets or  personalities. 

But  it  is  in  the  deep  traits  of  race  that  the  for- 
tunes of  nations  are  written,  and  however  derived, 
—  whether  a  happier  tribe  or  mixture  of  tribes,  the 
air,  or  what  circumstance  that  mixed  for  them  the 
golden  mean  of  temperament,  —  here  exists  the  best 
stock  in  the  world,  broad-fronted,  broad-bottomed, 
best  for  depth,  range  and  equability ;  men  of  aplomb 
and  reserves,  great  range  and  many  moods,  strong 


CHARACTER.  131 

instincts,  yet  apt  for  culture ;  war-class  as  well  as 
clerks;  earls  and  tradesmen;  wise  minority,  as  well 
as  foolish  majority ;  abysmal  temperament,  hiding 
wells  of  wrath,  and  glooms  on  which  no  sunshine 
settles,  alternated  with  a  common  sense  and  human- 
ity which  hold  them  fast  to  every  piece  of  cheerful 
duty ;  making  this  temperament  a  sea  to  which  all 
storms  are  superficial ;  a  race  to  which  their  fortunes 
flow,  as  if  they  alone  had  the  elastic  organization  at 
once  fine  and  robust  enough  for  dominion ;  as  if 
the  burly  inexpressive,  now  mute  and  contumacious, 
now  fierce  and  sharp-tongued  dragon,  which  once 
made  the  island  light  with  his  fiery  breath,  had 
bequeathed  his  ferocity  to  his  conqueror.  They 
hide  virtues  under  vices,  or  the  semblance  of  them. 
It  is  the  misshapen  hairy  Scandinavian  troll  again, 
who  lifts  the  cart  out  of  the  mire,  or  "  threshes  the 
corn  that  ten  day-laborers  could  not  end,"  but  it  is 
done  in  the  dark  and  with  muttered  maledictions. 
He  is  a  churl  with  a  soft  place  in  his  heart,  whose 
speech  is  a  brash  of  bitter  waters,  but  who  loves  to 
help  you  at  a  pinch.  He  says  no,  and  serves  you, 
and  your  thanks  disgust  him.  Here  was  lately  a 
cross-grained  miser,  odd  and  ugly,  resembling  in 
countenance  the  portrait  of  Punch  with  the  laugh 
left  out ;  rich  by  his  own  industry ;  sulking  in  a 
lonely  house ;  who  never  gave  a  dinner  to  any  man 
and  disdained  all  courtesies;  yet  as  true  a  wor- 


132  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

shipper  of  beauty  in  form  and  color  as  ever  existed, 
and  profusely  pouring  over  the  cold  mind  of  his 
countrymen  creations  of  grace  and  truth,  removing 
the  reproach  of  sterility  from  English  art,  catching 
from  their  savage  climate  every  fine  hint,  and  im- 
porting into  their  galleries  every  tint  and  trait  of 
sunnier  cities  and  skies ;  making  an  era  in  paint- 
ing ;  and  when  he  saw  that  the  splendor  of  one  of 
his  pictures  in  the  Exhibition  dimmed  his  rival's 
that  hung  next  it,  secretly  took  a  brush  and  black- 
ened his  own. 

They  do  not  wear  their  heart  in  their  sleeve  for 
daws  to  peck  at.  They  have  that  phlegm  or  staid- 
ness  which  it  is  a  compliment  to  disturb.  "  Great 
men,"  said  Aristotle,  "  are  always  of  a  nature 
originally  melancholy."  'Tis  the  habit  of  a  mind 
which  attaches  to  abstractions  with  a  passion  which 
gives  vast  results.  They  dare  to  displease,  they  do 
not  speak  to  expectation.  They  like  the  sayers  of 
No,  better  than  the  sayers  of  Yes.  Each  of  them 
has  an  opinion  which  he  feels  it  becomes  him  to 
express  all  the  more  that  it  differs  from  yours. 
They  are  meditating  opposition.  This  gravity  is 
inseparable  from  minds  of  great  resources. 

There  is  an  English  hero  superior  to  the  French, 
the  German,  the  Italian,  or  the  Greek.  When  he 
is  brought  to  the  strife  with  fate,  he  sacrifices  a 
richer  material  possession,  and  on  more  purely 


CHARACTER.  133 

metaphysical  grounds.  He  is  there  with  his  own 
consent,  face  to  face  with  fortune,  which  he  defies. 
On  deliberate  choice  and  from  grounds  of  charac- 
ter, he  has  elected  his  part  to  live  and  die  for,  and 
dies  with  grandeur.  This  race  has  added  new  ele- 
ments to  humanity  and  has  a  deeper  root  in  the 
world. 

They  have  great  range  of  scale,  from  ferocity  to 
exquisite  refinement.  With  larger  scale,  they  have 
great  retrieving  power.  After  running  each  ten- 
dency to  an  extreme,  they  try  another  tack  with 
equal  heat.  More  intellectual  than  other  races, 
when  they  live  with  other  races  they  do  not  take 
their  language,  but  bestow  their  own.  They  sub- 
sidize other  nations,  and  are  not  subsidized.  They 
proselyte,  and  are  not  proselyted.  They  assimilate 
other  races  to  themselves,  and  are  not  assimilated. 
The  English  did  not  calculate  the  conquest  of  the 
Indies.  It  fell  to  their  character.  So  they  ad- 
minister, in  different  parts  of  the  world,  the  codes 
of  every  empire  and  race  ;  in  Canada,  old  French 
law ;  in  the  Mauritius,  the  Code  Napoleon ;  in  the 
West  Indies,  the  edicts  of  the  Spanish  Cortes ;  in 
the  East  Indies,  the  Laws  of  Menu ;  in  the  Isle  of 
Man,  of  the  Scandinavian  Thing;  at  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  of  the  old  Netherlands  ;  and  in  the 
Ionian  Islands,  the  Pandects  of  Justinian. 

They  are  very  conscious  of  their  advantageous 


134  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

position  in  history.  England  is  the  lawgiver,  the 
patron,  the  instructor,  the  ally.  Compare  the  tone 
of  the  French  and  of  the  English  press :  the  first 
qiierulous,  captious,  sensitive  about  English  opin- 
ion ;  the  English  press  never  timorous  about  French 
opinion,  but  arrogant  and  contemptuous. 

They  are  testy  and  headstrong  through  an  ex- 
cess of  will  and  bias ;  churlish  as  men  sometimes 
please  to  be  who  do  not  forget  a  debt,  who  ask  no 
favors  and  who  will  do  what  they  like  with  their 
own.  With  education  and  intercourse,  these  asper- 
ities wear  off  and  leave  the  good-will  pure.  If 
anatomy  is  reformed  according  to  national  tenden- 
cies, I  suppose  the  spleen  will  hereafter  be  found  in 
the  Englishman,  not  found  in  the  American,  and 
differencing  the  one  from  the  other.  I  anticipate 
another  anatomical  discovery,  that  this  organ  wiU 
be  found  to  be  cortical  and  caducous ;  that  they 
are  superficially  morose,  but  at  last  tender-hearted, 
herein  differing  from  Rome  and  the  Latin  nations. 
Nothing  savage,  nothing  mean  resides  in  the  Eng- 
lish heart.  They  are  subject  to  panics  of  credu- 
lity and  of  rage,  but  the  temper  of  the  nation, 
however  disturbed,  settles  itself  soon  and  easily,  as, 
in  this  temperate  zone,  the  sky  after  whatever 
storms  clears  again,  and  serenity  is  its  normal  con- 
dition. 

A  saving  stupidity  masks  and  protects  their  per- 


CHARACTER.  135 

ception,  as  the  curtain  of  the  eagle's  eye.  Our 
swifter  Americans,  when  they  first  deal  with  Eng- 
lish, pronounce  them  stupid ;  but,  later,  do  them 
justice  as  people  who  wear  well,  or  hide  their 
strength.  To  understand  the  power  of  performance 
that  is  in  their  finest  wits,  in  the  patient  Newton, 
or  in  the  versatile  transcendent  poets,  or  in  the 
Dugdales,  Gibbons,  Hallams,  Eldons  and  Peels, 
one  should  see  how  English  day-laborers  hold  out. 
High  and  low,  they  are  of  an  unctuous  texture. 
There  is  an  adipocere  in  their  constitution,  as  if 
they  had  oil  also  for  their  mental  wheels  and  could 
perform  vast  amounts  of  work  without  damaging 
themselves. 

Even  the  scale  of  expense  on  which  people  live, 
and  to  which  scholars  and  professional  men  con- 
form, proves  the  tension  of  their  muscle,  when  vast 
numbers  are  found  who  can  each  lift  this  enormous 
load.  I  might  even  add,  their  daily  feasts  argue  a 
savage  vigor  of  body. 

No  nation  was  ever  so  rich  in  able  men  ;  "  Gen- 
tlemen," as  Charles  I.  said  of  Strafford,  "  whose 
abilities  might  make  a  prince  rather  afraid  than 
ashamed  in  the  greatest  affairs  of  state  ; "  men  of 
such  temper,  that,  like  Baron  Vere,  "  had  one  seen 
him  returning  from  a  victory,  he  would  by  his  si- 
lence have  suspected  that  he  had  lost  the  day  ;  and, 
had  he  beheld  Mm  in  a  retreat,  he  would  have  col- 


136  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

lected  him  a  conqueror  by  the  cheerfulness  of  his 
spirit." l 

The  following  passage  from  the  "Heimskringla" 
might  almost  stand  as  a  portrait  of  the  modern 
Englishman :  —  "  Haldor  was  very  stout  and  strong 
and  remarkably  handsome  in  appearances.  King 
Harold  gave  him  this  testimony,  that  he,  among 
all  his  men,  cared  least  about  doubtful  circum- 
stances, whether  they  betokened  danger  or  pleas- 
ure ;  for,  whatever  turned  up,  he  was  never  in 
higher  nor  in  lower  spirits,  never  slept  less  nor 
more  on  account  of  them,  nor  ate  nor  drank  but 
according  to  his  custom.  Haldor  was  not  a  man 
of  many  words,  but  short  in  conversation,  told  his 
opinion  bluntly  and  was  obstinate  and  hard :  and 
this  could  not  please  the  king,  who  had  many 
clever  people  about  him,  zealous  in  his  service. 
Haldor  remained  a  short  time  with  the  king,  and 
then  came  to  Iceland,  where  he  took  up  his  abode 
in  Hiardaholt  and  dwelt  in  that  farm  to  a  very 
advanced  age."  2 

The  national  temper,  in  the  civil  history,  is  not 
flashy  or  whiffling.  The  slow,  deep  English  mass 
smoulders  with  fire,  which  at  last  sets  all  its  bor- 
ders in  flame.  The  wrath  of  London  is  not  French 
wrath,  but  has  a  long  memory,  and,  in  its  hottest 
heat,  a  register  and  rule. 

1  Fuller,  Worthies  of  England. 

a  Heimskringla,  Laing's  translation,  vol.  iii.  p.  37. 


CHARACTER.  137 

Half  their  strength  they  put  not  forth.  They 
are  capable  of  a  sublime  resolution,  and  if  here- 
after the  war  of  races,  often  predicted,  and  making 
itself  a  war  of  opinions  also  (a  question  of  des- 
potism and  liberty  coming  from  Eastern  Europe), 
should  menace  the  English  civilization,  these  sea- 
kings  may  take  once  again  to  their  floating  castles 
and  find  a  new  home  and  a  second  millennium  of 
power  in  their  colonies. 

The  stability  of  England  is  the  security  of  the 
modern  world.  If  the  English  race  were  as  mu- 
table as  the  French,  what  reliance?  But  the  Eng- 
lish stand  for  liberty.  The  conservative,  money- 
loving,  lord-loving  English  are  yet  liberty-loving ; 
and  so  freedom  is  safe :  for  they  have  more  per- 
sonal force  than  any  other  people.  The  nation  al- 
ways resist  the  immoral  action  of  their  government. 
They  think  humanely  on  the  affairs  of  France,  of 
Turkey,  of  Poland,  of  Hungary,  of  Schleswig  Hoi- 
stein,  though  overborne  by  the  statecraft  of  the 
rulers  at  last. 

Does  the  early  history  of  each  tribe  show  the 
permanent  bias,  which,  though  not  less  potent,  is 
masked  as  the  tribe  spreads  its  activity  into  col- 
onies, commerce,  codes,  arts,  letters?  The  early 
history  shows  it,  as  the  musician  plays  the  air  which 
he  proceeds  to  conceal  in  a  tempest  of  variations. 
In  Alfred,  in  the  Northmen,  one  may  read  the 


138  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

genius  of  the  English  society,  namely  that  private 
life  is  the  place  of  honor.  Glory,  a  career,  and 
ambition,  words  familiar  to  the  longitude  of  Paris, 
are  seldom  heard  in  English  speech.  Nelson  wrote 
from  their  hearts  his  homely  telegraph,  "  England 
expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty." 

For  actual  service,  for  the  dignity  of  a  profes- 
sion, or  to  appease  diseased  or  inflamed  talent,  the 
army  and  navy  may  be  entered  (the  worst  boys  do- 
ing well  in  the  navy)  ;  and  the  civil  service  in  de- 
partments where  serious  official  work  is  done ;  and 
they  hold  in  esteem  the  barrister  engaged  in  the 
severer  studies  of  the  law.  But  the  calm,  sound 
and  most  British  Briton  shrinks  from  public  life 
as  charlatanism,  and  respects  an  economy  founded 
on  agriculture,  coal-mines,  manufactures  or  trade, 
which  secures  an  independence  through  the  creation 
of  real  values. 

They  wish  neither  to  command  nor  obey,  but  to 
be  kings  in  their  own  houses.  They  are  intellect- 
ual and  deeply  enjoy  literature ;  they  like  well  to 
have  the  world  served  up  to  them  in  books,  maps, 
models,  and  every  mode  of  exact  information,  and, 
though  not  creators  in  art,  they  value  its  refine- 
ment. They  are  ready  for  leisure,  can  direct  and 
fill  their  own  day,  nor  need  so  much  as  others  the 
constraint  of  a  necessity.  But  the  history  of  the 
nation  discloses,  at  every  turn,  this  original  predi- 


CHARACTER.  139 

lection  for  private  independence,  and  however  this 
inclination  may  have  been  disturbed  by  the  bribes 
with  which  their  vast  colonial  power  has  warped 
men  out  of  orbit,  the  inclination  endures,  and  forms 
and  reforms  the  laws,  letters,  manners  and  occupa- 
tions. They  choose  that  welfare  which  is  compat- 
ible with  the  commonwealth,  knowing  that  such 
alone  is  stable;  as  wise  merchants  prefer  invest- 
ments in  the  three  per  cents. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

COCKAYNE. 

THE  English  are  a  nation  of  humorists.  Indi- 
vidual right  is  pushed  to  the  uttermost  bound  com- 
patible with  public  order.  Property  is  so  perfect 
that  it  seems  the  craft  of  that  race,  and  not  to  exist 
elsewhere.  The  king  cannot  step  on  an  acre  which 
the  peasant  refuses  to  sell.  A  testator  endows  a 
dog  or  a  rookery,  and  Europe  cannot  interfere  with 
his  absurdity.  Every  individual  has  his  particular 
way  of  living,  which  he  pushes  to  folly,  and  the 
decided  sympathy  of  his  compatriots  is  engaged  to 
back  up  Mr.  Crump's  whim  by  statutes  and  chan- 
cellors and  horse -guards.  There  is  no  freak  so 
ridiculous  but  some  Englishman  has  attempted  to 
immortalize  by  money  and  law.  British  citizen- 
ship is  as  omnipotent  as  Roman  was.  Mr.  Cock- 
ayne is  very  sensible  of  this.  The  pursy  man  means 
by  freedom  the  right  to  do  as  he  pleases,  and  does 
wrong  in  order  to  feel  his  freedom,  and  makes  a 
conscience  of  persisting  in  it. 

He  is  intensely  patriotic,  for  his  country  is  so 
small.  His  confidence  in  the  power  and  perform- 


COCKAYNE.  141 

ance  of  his  nation  makes  him  provokingly  incu- 
rious about  other  nations.  He  dislikes  foreigners. 
Swedenborg,  who  lived  much  in  England,  notes 
"the  similitude  of  minds  among  the  English,  in 
consequence  of  which  they  contract  familiarity  with 
friends  who  are  of  that  nation,  and  seldom  with 
others;  and  they  regard  foreigners  as  one  look- 
ing through  a  telescope  from  the  top  of  a  palace 
regards  those  who  dwell  or,  wander  about  out  of 
the  city."  A  much  older  traveller,  the  Venetian 
who  wrote  the  "  Relation  of  England,"  l  in  1500, 
says :  —  "  The  English  are  great  lovers  of  them- 
selves and  of  every  thing  belonging  to  them.  They 
think  that  there  are  no  other  men  than  themselves 
and  no  other  world  but  England ;  and  whenever 
they  see  a  handsome  foreigner,  they  say  that  he 
looks  like  an  Englishman  and  it  is  a  great  pity 
he  should  not  be  an  Englishman ;  and  whenever 
they  partake  of  any  delicacy  with  a  foreigner,  they 
ask  him  whether  such  a  thing  is  made  in  his  coun- 
try." When  he  adds  epithets  of  praise,  his  climax 
is,  "  So  English ; "  and  when  he  wishes  to  pay  you 
the  highest  compliment,  he  says,  I  should  not  know 
you  from  an  Englishman.  France  is,  by  its  nat- 
ural contrast,  a  kind  of  blackboard  on  which  Eng- 
lish character  draws  its  own  traits  in  chalk.  This 
arrogance  habitually  exhibits  itself  in  allusions  to 
1  Printed  by  the  Camden  Society. 


142  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  French.  I  suppose  that  all  men  of  English 
blood  in  America,  Europe,  or  Asia,  have  a  secret 
feeling  of  joy  that  they  are  not  French  natives. 
Mr.  Coleridge  is  said  to  have  given  public  thanks 
to  God,  at  the  close  of  a  lecture,  that  he  had  de- 
fended him  from  being  able  to  utter  a  single  sen- 
tence in  the  French  language.  I  have  found  that 
Englishmen  have  such  a  good  opinion  of  England, 
that  the  ordinary  phrases  in  all  good  society,  of 
postponing  or  disparaging  one's  own  things  in  talk- 
ing with  a  stranger,  are  seriously  mistaken  by  them 
for  an  insuppressible  homage  to  the  merits  of  their 
nation ;  and  the  New  Yorker  or  Pennsylvanian 
who  modestly  laments  the  disadvantage  of  a  new 
country,  log-huts  and  savages,  is  surprised  by  the 
instant  and  unfeigned  commiseration  of  the  whole 
company,  who  plainly  account  all  the  world  out  of 
England  a  heap  of  rubbish. 

The  same  insular  limitation  pinches  his  foreign 
politics.  He  sticks  to  his  traditions  and  usages, 
and,  so  help  him  God !  he  will  force  his  island  by- 
laws down  the  throat  of  great  countries,  like  India, 
China,  Canada,  Australia,  and  not  only  so,  but 
impose  Wapping  on  the  Congress  of  Vienna  and 
trample  down  all  nationalities  with  his  taxed  boots. 
Lord  Chatham  goes  for  liberty  and  no  taxation 
without  representation ;  —  for  that  is  British  law ; 
but  not  a  hobnail  shall  they  dare  make  in  Amer- 


COCKAYNE.  143 

ica,  but  buy  their  nails  in  England ;  —  for  that 
also  is  British  law  ;  and  the  fact  that  British  com- 
merce was  to  be  re-created  by  the  independence  of 
America,  took  them  all  by  surprise. 

In  short,  I  am  afraid  that  English  nature  is  so 
rank  and  aggressive  as  to  be  a  little  incompatible 
with  every  other.  The  world  is  not  wide  enough 
for  two. 

But  beyond  this  nationality,  it  must  be  admitted, 
the  island  offers  a  daily  worship  to  the  old  Norse 
god  Brage,  celebrated  among  our  Scandinavian 
forefathers  for  his  eloquence  and  majestic  air.  The 
English  have  a  steady  courage  that  fits  them  for 
great  attempts  and  endurance :  they  have  also  a 
petty  courage,  through  which  every  man  delights 
in  showing  himself  for  what  he  is  and  in  doing 
what  he  can ;  so  that  hi  all  companies,  each  of 
them  has  too  good  an  opinion  of  himself  to  imitate 
any  body.  He  hides  no  defect  of  his  form,  fea- 
tures, dress,  connection,  or  birthplace,  for  he  thinks 
every  circumstance  belonging  to  him  comes  recom- 
mended to  you.  If  one  of  them  have  a  bald,  or  a 
red,  or  a  green  head,  or  bow  legs,  or  a  scar,  or 
mark,  or  a  paunch,  or  a  squeaking  or  a  raven  voice, 
he  has  persuaded  himself  that  there  is  something 
modish  and  becoming  in  it,  and  that  it  sits  well  on 
him. 

But  nature  makes  nothing  in  vain,  and  this  little 


144  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

superfluity  of  self-regard  in  the  English  brain  is 
one  of  the  secrets  of  their  power  and  history.  It 
sets  every  man  on  being  and  doing  what  he  really 
is  and  can.  It  takes  away  a  dodging,  skulking, 
secondary  air,  and  encourages  a  frank  and  manly 
bearing,  so  that  each  man  makes  the  most  of  him- 
self and  loses  no  opportunity  for  want  of  pushing. 
A  man's  personal  defects  will  commonly  have,  with 
the  rest  of  the  world,  precisely  that  importance 
which  they  have  to  himself.  If  he  makes  light  of 
them,  so  will  other  men.  We  all  find  in  these  a 
convenient  meter  of  character,  since  a  little  man 
would  be  ruined  by  the  vexation.  I  remember  a 
shrewd  politician,  in  one  of  our  western  cities,  told 
me  that  "  he  had  known  several  successful  states- 
men made  by  their  foible."  And  another,  an  ex- 
governor  of  Illinois,  said  to  me,  "  If  the  man  knew 
anything,  he  would  sit  in  a  corner  and  be  modest ; 
but  he  is  such  an  ignorant  peacock  that  he  goes 
bustling  up  and  down  and  hits  on  extraordinary 
discoveries." 

There  is  also  this  benefit  in  brag,  that  the  speaker 
is  unconsciously  expressing  his  own  ideal.  Humor 
him  by  all  means,  draw  it  all  out  and  hold  him  to 
it.  Their  culture  generally  enables  the  travelled 
English  to  avoid  any  ridiculous  extremes  of  this 
self-pleasing,  and  to  give  it  an  agreeable  air.  Then 
the  natural  disposition  is  fostered  by  the  respect 


COCKAYNE.  145 

which  they  find  entertained  in  the  world  for  Eng- 
lish ability.  It  was  said  of  Louis  XIV.,  that  his 
gait  and  air  were  becoming  enough  in  so  great  a 
monarch,  yet  would  have  been  ridiculous  in  another 
man  ;  so  the  prestige  of  the  English  name  warrants 
a  certain  confident  bearing,  which  a  Frenchman  or 
Belgian  could  not  carry.  At  all  events,  they  feel 
themselves  at  liberty  to  assume  the  most  extraordi- 
nary tone  on  the  subject  of  English  merits. 

An  English  lady  on  the  Rhine  hearing  a  Ger- 
man speaking  of  her  party  as  foreigners,  exclaimed, 
"  No,  we  are  not  foreigners ;  we  are  English  ;  it  is 
you  that  are  foreigners."  They  tell  you  daily  in 
London  the  stoiy  of  the  Frenchman  and  English- 
man who  quarrelled.  Both  were  unwilling  to  fight, 
but  their  companions  put  them  up  to  it ;  at  last  it 
was  agreed  that  they  should  fight  alone,  in  the 
dark,  and  with  pistols :  the  candles  were  put  out, 
and  the  Englishman,  to  make  sure  not  to  hit  any 
body,  fired  up  the  chimney,  —  and  brought  down 
the  Frenchman.  They  have  no  curiosity  about  for- 
eigners, and  answer  any  information  you  may  vol- 
unteer with  "  Oh,  Oh  !  "  until  the  informant  makes 
up  his  mind  that  they  shall  die  in  their  ignorance, 
for  any  help  he  will  offer.  There  are  really  no 
limits  to  this  conceit,  though  brighter  men  among 
them  make  painful  efforts  to  be  candid. 

The  habit  of  brag  runs  through  all  classes,  from 


146  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  "Times"  newspaper  through  politicians  and 
poets,  through  Wordsworth,  Carlyle,  Mill  and  Syd- 
ney Smith,  down  to  the  boys  of  Eton.  In  the 
gravest  treatise  on  political  economy,  in  a  philo- 
sophical essay,  in  books  of  science,  one  is  surprised 
by  the  most  innocent  exhibition  of  unflinching  na- 
tionality. In  a  tract  on  Corn,  a  most  amiable  and 
accomplished  gentleman  writes  thus  :  —  "  Though 
Britain,  according  to  Bishop  Berkeley's  idea,  were 
surrounded  by  a  wall  of  brass  ten  thousand  cubits 
in  height,  still  she  would  as  far  excel  the  rest  of 
the  globe  in  riches,  as  she  now  does  both  in  this 
secondary  quality  and  in  the  more  important  ones 
of  freedom,  virtue  and  science."  l 

The  English  dislike  the  American  structure  of 
society,  whilst  yet  trade,  mills,  public  education 
and  Chartism  are  doing  what  they  can  to  create  in 
England  the  same  social  condition.  America  is 
the  paradise  of  the  economists ;  is  the  favorable 
exception  invariably  quoted  to  the  rules  of  ruin ; 
but  when  he  speaks  directly  of  the  Americans  the 
islander  forgets  his  philosophy  and  remembers  his 
disparaging  anecdotes. 

But  this  childish  patriotism  costs  something,  like 
all  narrowness.  The  English  sway  of  their  colo- 
nies has  no  root  of  kindness.  They  govern  by 
their  arts  and  ability;  they  are  more  just  than 
1  William  Speuce. 


COCKAYNE.  147 

kind ;  and  whenever  an  abatement  of  their  power 
is  felt,  they  have  not  conciliated  the  affection  on 
which  to  rely. 

Coarse  local  distinctions,  as  those  of  nation, 
province,  or  town,  are  useful  in  the  absence  of  real 
ones ;  but  we  must  not  insist  on  these  accidental 
lines.  Individual  traits  are  always  triumphing 
over  national  ones.  There  is  no  fence  in  meta- 
physics discriminating  Greek,  or  English,  or  Span- 
ish science,  -ZEsop  and  Montaigne,  Cervantes  and 
Saadi  are  men  of  the  world  ;  and  to  wave  our  own 
flag  at  the  dinner  table  or  in  the  University  is  to 
carry  the  boisterous  dulness  of  a  fire-club  into  a 
polite  circle.  Nature  and  destiny  are  always  on 
the  watch  for  our  follies.  Nature  trips  us  up  when 
we  strut ;  and  there  are  curious  examples  in  his- 
tory on  this  very  point  of  national  pride. 

George  of  Cappadocia,  born  at  Epiphania  in 
Cilicia,  was  a  low  parasite  who  got  a  lucrative  con- 
tract to  supply  the  army  with  bacon.  A  rogue  and 
informer,  he  got  rich  and  was  forced  to  run  from 
justice.  He  saved  his  money,  embraced  Arianism, 
collected  a  library,  and  got  promoted  by  a  faction 
to  the  episcopal  throne  of  Alexandria.  When  Jul- 
ian came,  A.  D.  361,  George  was  dragged  to  pris- 
on ;  the  prison  was  burst  open  by  the  mob  and 
George  was  lynched,  as  he  deserved.  And  this 
precious  knave  became,  in  good  time,  Saint  George 


148  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

of  England,  patron  of  chivalry,  emblem  of  victory 
and  civility  and  the  pride  of  the  best  blood  of  the 
modern  world. 

Strange,  that  the  solid  truth  -  speaking  Briton 
should  derive  from  an  impostor.  Strange,  that  the 
New  World  should  have  no  better  luck,  —  that 
broad  America  must  wear  the  name  of  a  thief. 
Amerigo  Vespucci,  the  pickledealer  at  Seville,  who 
went  out,  in  1499,  a  subaltern  with  Hojeda,  and 
whose  highest  naval  rank  was  boatswain's  mate  in 
an  expedition  that  never  sailed,  managed  in  this 
lying  world  to  supplant  Columbus  and  baptize  half 
the  earth  with  his  own  dishonest  name.  Thus  no- 
body can  throw  stones.  We  are  equally  badly  off 
in  our  founders ;  and  the  false  pickledealer  is  an 
offset  to  the  false  bacon-seller. 


CHAPTER  X. 

WEALTH. 

THERE  is  no  country  in  which  so  absolute  a  hom- 
age is  paid  to  wealth.  In  America  there  is  a  touch 
of  shame  when  a  man  exhibits  the  evidences  of 
large  property,  as  if  after  all  it  needed  apology. 
But  the  Englishman  has  pure  pride  in  his  wealth, 
and  esteems  it  a  final  certificate.  A  coarse  logic 
rules  throughout  all  English  souls ;  —  if  you  have 
merit,  can  you  not  show  it  by  your  good  clothes 
and  coach  and  horses  ?  How  can  a  man  be  a  gen- 
tleman without  a  pipe  of  wine  ?  Hay  don  says, 
"  There  is  a  fierce  resolution  to  make  every  man 
live  according  to  the  means  he  possesses."  There 
is  a  mixture  of  religion  in  it.  They  are  under  the 
Jewish  law,  and  read  with  sonorous  emphasis  that 
their  days  shall  be  long  in  the  land,  they  shall  have 
sons  and  daughters,  flocks  and  herds,  wine  and  oil. 
In  exact  proportion  is  the  reproach  of  poverty. 
They  do  not  wish  to  be  represented  except  by  opu- 
lent men.  An  Englishman  who  has  lost  his  for- 
tune is  said  to  have  died  of  a  broken  heart.  The 
last  term  of  insult  is,  "  a  beggar."  Nelson  said, 


150  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

"  The  want  of  fortune  is  a  crime  which  I  can  never 
get  over."  Sydney  Smith  said,  "  Poverty  is  infa- 
mous in  England."  And  one  of  their  recent  writ- 
ers speaks,  in  reference  to  a  private  and  scholastic 
life,  of  "the  grave  moral  deterioration  which  fol- 
lows an  empty  exchequer."  You  shall  find  this 
sentiment,  if  not  so  frankly  put,  yet  deeply  implied 
in  the  novels  and  romances  of  the  present  century, 
and  not  only  in  these,  but  in  biography  and  in  the 
votes  of  public  assemblies,  in  the  tone  of  the  preach- 
ing and  in  the  table-talk. 

I  was  lately  turning  over  Wood's  Athence  Ox- 
onienses,  and  looking  naturally  for  another  stand- 
ard in  a  chronicle  of  the  scholars  of  Oxford  for 
two  hundred  years.  But  I  found  the  two  disgraces 
in  that,  as  in  most  English  books,  are,  first,  dis- 
loyalty to  Church  and  State,  and  second,  to  be 
born  poor,  or  to  come  to  poverty.  A  natural  fruit 
of  England  is  the  brutal  political  economy.  Mal- 
thus  finds  no  cover  laid  at  nature's  table  for  the 
laborer's  son.  In  1809,  the  majority  in  Parliament 
expressed  itself  by  the  language  of  Mr.  Fuller  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  "  If  you  do  not  like  the 
country,  damn  you,  you  can  leave  it."  When  Sir 
S.  Romilly  proposed  his  bill  forbidding  parish  offi- 
cers to  bind  children  apprentices  at  a  greater  dis- 
tance than  forty  miles  from  their  home,  Peel  op- 
posed, and  Mr.  Wortley  said,  "though,  in  the 


WEALTH.  151 

higher  ranks,  to  cultivate  family  affections  was  a 
good  thing,  it  was  not  so  among  the  lower  orders. 
Better  take  them  away  from  those  who  might  de- 
prave them.  And  it  was  highly  injurious  to  trade 
to  stop  binding  to  manufacturers,  as  it  must  raise 
the  price  of  labor  and  of  manufactured  goods." 

The  respect  for  truth  of  facts  in  England  is 
equalled  only  by  the  respect  for  wealth.  It  is  at 
once  the  pride  of  art  of  the  Saxon,  as  he  is  a 
wealth-maker,  and  his  passion  for  independence. 
The  Englishman  believes  that  every  man  must  take 
care  of  himself,  and  has  himself  to  thank  if  he  do 
not  mend  his  condition.  To  pay  their  debts  is  their 
national  point  of  honor.  From  the  Exchequer  and 
the  East  India  House  to  the  huckster's  shop,  every 
thing  prospers  because  it  is  solvent.  The  British 
armies  are  solvent  and  pay  for  what  they  take. 
The  British  empire  is  solvent ;  for  in  spite  of  the 
huge  national  debt,  the  valuation  mounts.  During 
the  war  from  1789  to  1815,  whilst  they  complained 
that  they  were  taxed  within  an  inch  of  their  lives, 
and  by  dint  of  enormous  taxes  were  subsidizing 
all  the  continent  against  France,  the  English  were 
growing  rich  every  year  faster  than  any  people 
ever  grew  before.  It  is  their  maxim  that  the 
weight  of  taxes  must  be  calculated,  not  by  what 
is  taken,  but  by  what  is  left.  Solvency  is  in  the 
ideas  and  mechanism  of  an  Englishman.  The 


152  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Crystal  Palace  is  not  considered  honest  until  it 
pays ;  no  matter  how  much  convenience,  beauty, 
or  6dat,  it  must  be  self-supporting.  They  are  con- 
tented with  slower  steamers,  as  long  as  they  know 
that  swifter  boats  lose  money.  They  proceed  log- 
ically by  the  double  method  of  labor  and  thrift. 
Every  household  exhibits  an  exact  economy,  and 
nothing  of  that  uncalculated  headlong  expenditure 
which  families  use  in  America.  If  they  cannot 
pay,  they  do  not  buy ;  for  they  have  no  presump- 
tion of  better  fortunes  next  year,  as  our  people 
have ;  and  they  say  without  shame,  I  cannot  afford 
it.  Gentlemen  do  not  hesitate  to  ride  in  the  second- 
class  cars,  or  in  the  second  cabin.  An  economist, 
or  a  man  who  can  proportion  his  means  and  his  am- 
bition, or  bring  the  year  round  with  expenditure 
which  expresses  his  character  without  embarrassing 
one  day  of  his  future,  is  already  a  master  of  life, 
and  a  freeman.  Lord  Burleigh  writes  to  his  son 
that  "one  ought  never  to  devote  more  than  two 
thirds  of  his  income  to  the  ordinary  expenses  of 
life,  since  the  extraordinary  will  be  certain  to  ab- 
sorb the  other  third." 

The  ambition  to  create  value  evokes  every  kind 
of  ability;  government  becomes  a  manufacturing 
corporation,  and  every  house  a  mill.  The  headlong 
bias  to  utility  will  let  no  talent  lie  in  a  napkin,  — 
if  possible  will  teach  spiders  to  weave  silk  stock 


WEALTH.  153 

ings.  An  Englishman,  while  he  eats  and  drinks 
no  more  or  not  much  more  than  another  man, 
labors  three  times  as  many  hours  in  the  course  of 
a  year  as  another  European  ;  or,  his  life  as  a  work- 
man is  three  lives.  He  works  fast.  Every  thing 
in  England  is  at  a  quick  pace.  They  have  rein- 
forced their  own  productivity  by  the  creation  of 
that  marvellous  machinery  which  differences  this 
age  from  any  other  age. 

It  is  a  curious  chapter  in  modern  history,  the 
growth  of  the  machine-shop.  Six  hundred  years 
ago,  Roger  Bacon  explained  the  precession  of  the 
equinoxes,  the  consequent  necessity  of  the  reform 
of  the  calendar  ;  measured  the  length  of  the  year ; 
invented  gunpowder ;  and  announced  (as  if  look- 
ing from  his  lofty  cell,  over  five  centuries,  into 
ours),  that  "  machines  can  be  constructed  to  drive 
ships  more  rapidly  than  a  whole  galley  of  rowers 
could  do;  nor  would  they  need  anything  but  a 
pilot  to  steer  them.  Carriages  also  might  be  con- 
structed to  move  with  an  incredible  speed,  without 
the  aid  of  any  animal.  Finally,  it  would  not  be 
impossible  to  make  machines  which  by  means  of  a 
suit  of  wings  should  fly  in  the  air  in  the  manner  of 
birds."  But  the  secret  slept  with  Bacon.  The  six 
hundred  years  have  not  yet  fulfilled  his  words. 
Two  centuries  ago  the  sawing  of  timber  was  done 
by  hand ;  the  carriage  wheels  ran  on  wooden  axles ; 


154  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  land  was  tilled  by  wooden  ploughs.  And  it 
was  to  little  purpose  that  they  had  pit-coal,  or  that 
looms  were  improved,  unless  Watt  and  Stephenson 
had  taught  them  to  work  force-pumps  and  power- 
looms  by  steam.  The  great  strides  were  all  taken 
within  the  last  hundred  years.  The  Life  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  in  his  day  the  model  Englishman, 
very  properly  has,  for  a  frontispiece,  a  drawing  of 
the  spinning- jenny,  which  wove  the  web  of  his  for- 
tunes. Hargreaves  invented  the  spinning-jenny, 
and  died  in  a  workhouse.  Arkwright  improved 
the  invention,  and  the  machine  dispensed  with  the 
work  of  ninety-nine  men ;  that  is,  one  spinner 
could  do  as  much  work  as  one  hundred  had  done 
before.  The  loom  was  improved  further.  But  the 
men  would  sometimes  strike  for  wages  and  combine 
against  the  masters,  and,  about  1829-30,  much  fear 
was  felt  lest  the  trade  would  be  drawn  away  by 
these  interruptions  and  the  emigration  of  the  spin- 
ners to  Belgium  and  the  United  States.  Iron  and 
steel  are  very  obedient.  Whether  it  were  not  pos- 
sible to  make  a  spinner  that  would  not  rebel,  nor 
mutter,  nor  scowl,  nor  strike  for  wages,  nor  emi- 
grate ?  At  the  solicitation  of  the  masters,  after  a 
mob  and  riot  at  Staley  Bridge,  Mr.  Roberts  of 
Manchester  undertook  to  create  this  peaceful  fel- 
low, instead  of  the  quarrelsome  fellow  God  had 
made.  After  a  few  trials,  he  succeeded,  and  in 


WEALTH.  155 

1830  procured  a  patent  for  his  self-acting  mule  ;  a 
creation,  the  delight  of  mill-owners,  and  "  destined," 
they  said,  "  to  restore  order  among  the  industrious 
classes  ;  "  a  machine  requiring  only  a  child's  hand 
to  piece  the  broken  yarns.  As  Arkwright  had 
destroyed  domestic  spinning,  so  Roberts  destroyed 
the  factory  spinner.  The  power  of  machinery  in 
Great  Britain,  in  mills,  has  been  computed  to  be 
equal  to  600,000,000  men,  one  man  being  able  by 
the  aid  of  steam  to  do  the  work  which  required  two 
hundred  and  fifty  men  to  accomplish  fifty  years 
ago.  The  production  has  been  commensurate. 
England  already  had  this  laborious  race,  rich  soil, 
water,  wood,  coal,  iron  and  favorable  climate. 
Eight  hundred  years  ago  commerce  had  made  it 
rich,  and  it  was  recorded,  "  England  is  the  richest 
of  all  the  northern  nations."  The  Norman  histo- 
rians recite  that  "  in  1067,  William  carried  with 
him  into  Normandy,  from  England,  more  gold  and 
silver  than  had  ever  before  been  seen  in  Gaul." 
But  when,  to  this  labor  and  trade  and  these  native 
resources  was  added  this  goblin  of  steam,  with  his 
myriad  arms,  never  tired,  working  night  and  day 
everlastingly,  the  amassing  of  property  has  run  out 
of  all  figures.  It  makes  the  motor  of  the  last 
ninety  years.  The  steampipe  has  added  to  her 
population  and  wealth  the  equivalent  of  four  or 
five  Englands.  Forty  thousand  ships  are  entered 


156  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

in  Lloyd's  lists.  The  yield  of  wheat  has  gone  on 
from  2,000,000  quarters  in  the  time  of  the  Stuarts, 
to  13,000,000  in  1854.  A  thousand  million  of 
pounds  sterling  are  said  to  compose  the  floating 
money  of  commerce.  In  1848,  Lord  John  Russell 
stated  that  the  people  of  this  country  had  laid  out 
£300,000,000  of  capital  in  railways,  in  the  last 
four  years.  But  a  better  measure  than  these 
sounding  figures  is  the  estimate  that  there  is 
wealth  enough  in  England  to  support  the  entire 
population  in  idleness  for  one  year. 

The  wise,  versatile,  all-giving  machinery  makes 
chisels,  roads,  locomotives,  telegraphs.  Whitworth 
divides  a  bar  to  a  millionth  of  an  inch.  Steam 
twines  huge  cannon  into  wreaths,  as  easily  as  it 
braids  straw,  and  vies  with  the  volcanic  forces 
which  twisted  the  strata.  It  can  clothe  shingle 
mountains  with  ship-oaks,  make  sword-blades  that 
will  cut  gun-barrels  in  two.  In  Egypt,  it  can  plant 
forests,  and  bring  rain  after  three  thousand  years. 
Already  it  is  ruddering  the  balloon,  and  the  next 
war  will  be  fought  in  the  air.  But  another  machine 
more  potent  in  England  than  steam  is  the  Bank. 
It  votes  an  issue  of  bills,  population  is  stimulated 
and  cities  rise;  it  refuses  loans,  and  emigration 
empties  the  country ;  trade  sinks ;  revolutions  break 
out ;  kings  are  dethroned.  By  these  new  agents 
our  social  system  is  moulded.  By  dint  of  steam 


WEALTH.  157 

and  of  money,  war  and  commerce  are  changed. 
Nations  have  lost  their  old  omnipotence ;  the  pa- 
triotic tie  does  not  hold.  Nations  are  getting  obso- 
lete, we  go  and  live  where  we  will.  Steam  has 
enabled  men  to  choose  what  law  they  will  live 
under.  Money  makes  place  for  them.  The  tele- 
graph is  a  limp  band  that  will  hold  the  Fenris- 
wolf  of  war.  For  now  that  a  telegraph  line  runs 
through  France  and  Europe  from  London,  every 
message  it  transmits  makes  stronger  by  one  thread 
the  band  which  war  will  have  to  cut. 

The  introduction  of  these  elements  gives  new 
resources  to  existing  proprietors.  A  sporting  duke 
may  fancy  that  the  state  depends  on  the  House 
of  Lords,  but  the  engineer  sees  that  every  stroke 
of  the  steam-piston  gives  value  to  the  duke's  land, 
fills  it  with  tenants ;  doubles,  quadruples,  centuples 
the  duke's  capital,  and  creates  new  measures  and 
new  necessities  for  the  culture  of  his  children. 
Of  course  it  draws  the  nobility  into  the  competi- 
tion, as  stock-holders  in  the  mine,  the  canal,  the 
railway,  in  the  application  of  steam  to  agriculture, 
and  sometimes  into  trade.  But  it  also  introduces 
large  classes  into  the  same  competition ;  the  old 
energy  of  the  Norse  race  arms  itself  with  these 
magnificent  powers  ;  new  men  prove  an  overmatch 
for  the  land-owner,  and  the  mill  buys  out  the 
castle.  Scandinavian  Thor,  who  once  forged  his 


158  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

bolts  in  icy  Hecla  and  built  galleys  by  lonely 
fiords,  in  England  has  advanced  with  the  times, 
has  shorn  his  beard,  enters  Parliament,  sits  down 
at  a  desk  in  the  India  House  and  lends  Miollnir 
to  Birmingham  for  a  steam-hammer. 

The  creation  of  wealth  in  England  in  the  last 
ninety  years  is  a  main  fact  in  modern  history. 
The  wealth  of  London  determines  prices  all  over 
the  globe.  All  things  precious,  or  useful,  or  amus- 
ing, or  intoxicating,  are  sucked  into  this  commerce 
and  floated  to  London.  Some  English  private  for- 
tunes reach,  and  some  exceed  a  million  of  dollars 
a  year.  A  hundred  thousand  palaces  adorn  the 
island.  All  that  can  feed  the  senses  and  passions, 
all  that  can  succor  the  talent  or  arm  the  hands  of 
the  intelligent  middle  class,  who  never  spare  in 
what  they  buy  for  their  own  consumption ;  all  that 
can  aid  science,  gratify  taste,  or  soothe  comfort, 
is  in  open  market.  Whatever  is  excellent  and 
beautiful  in  civil,  rural,  or  ecclesiastic  architecture, 
in  fountain,  garden,  or  grounds, — the  English  noble 
crosses  sea  and  land  to  see  and  to  copy  at  home. 
The  taste  and  science  of  thirty  peaceful  genera- 
tions ;  the  gardens  which  Evelyn  planted ;  the  tem- 
ple3  and  pleasure-houses  which  Inigo  Jones  and 
Christopher  "W ren  built ;  the  wood-  that  Gibbons 
carved;  the  taste  of  foreign  and  domestic  artists, 
Shenstone,  Pope,  Brown,  London,  Paxton,  —  are 


WEALTH.  159 

in  the  vast  auction,  and  the  hereditary  principle 
heaps  on  the  owner  of  to-day  the  benefit  of  ages 
of  owners.  The  present  possessors  are  to  the  full 
as  absolute  as  any  of  their  fathers  in  choosing 
and  procuring  what  they  like.  This  comfort  and 
splendor,  the  breadth  of  lake  and  mountain,  til- 
lage, pasture  and  park,  sumptuous  castle  and  mod- 
ern villa,  —  all  consist  with  perfect  order.  They 
have  no  revolutions ;  no  horse-guards  dictating  to 
the  crown ;  no  Parisian  poissardes  and  barricades  ; 
no  mob :  but  drowsy  habitude,  daily  dress-dinners, 
wine  and  ale  and  beer  and  gin  and  sleep. 

With  this  power  of  creation  and  this  passion  for 
independence,  property  has  reached  an  ideal  per- 
fection. It  is  felt  and  treated  as  the  national 
life-blood.  The  laws  are  framed  to  give  property 
the  securest  possible  basis,  and  the  provisions  to 
lock  and  transmit  it  have  exercised  the  cunningest 
heads  in  a  profession  which  never  admits  a  fool. 
The  rights  of  property  nothing  but  felony  and 
treason  can  override.  The  house  is  a  castle  which 
the  king  cannot  enter.  The  Bank  is  a  strong  box 
to  which  the  king  has  no  key.  Whatever  surly 
sweetness  possession  can  give,  is  tasted  in  Eng- 
land to  the  dregs.  Vested  rights  are  awful  things, 
and  absolute  possession  gives  the  smallest  free- 
holder identity  of  interest  with  the  duke.  High 
stone  fences  and  padlocked  garden-gates  announce 


160  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  absolute  will  of  the  owner  to  be  alone.  Every 
whim  of  exaggerated  egotism  is  put  into  stone  and 
iron,  into  silver  and  gold,  with  costly  deliberation 
and  detail. 

An  Englishman  hears  that  the  Queen  Dowager 
wishes  to  establish  some  claim  to  put  her  park 
paling  a  rod  forward  into  his  grounds,  so  as  to  get 
a  coachway  and  save  her  a  mile  to  the  avenue. 
Instantly  he  transforms  his  paling  into  stone-ma- 
sonry, solid  as  the  walls  of  Cuma,  and  all  Europe 
cannot  prevail  on  him  to  sell  or  compound  for  an 
inch  of  the  land.  They  delight  in  a  freak  as  the 
proof  of  their  sovereign  freedom.  Sir  Edward 
Boynton,  at  Spic  Park  at  Cadenham,  on  a  preci- 
pice of  incomparable  prospect,  built  a  house  like  a 
long  barn,  which  had  not  a  window  on  the  prospect 
side.  Strawberry  Hill  of  Horace  Walpole,  Font- 
hill  Abbey  of  Mr.  Beckford,  were  freaks;  and 
Newstead  Abbey  became  one  in  the  hands  of  Lord 
Byron. 

But  the  proudest  result  of  this  creation  has  been 
the  great  and  refined  forces  it  has  put  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  private  citizen.  In  the  social  world  an 
Englishman  to-day  has  the  best  lot.  He  is  a  king 
in  a  plain  coat.  He  goes  with  the  most  powerful 
protection,  keeps  the  best  company,  is  armed  by 
the  best  education,  is  seconded  by  wealth ;  and  his 
English  name  and  accidents  are  like  a  flourish  of 


WEALTH.  161 

trumpets  announcing  him.  This,  with  his  quiet 
style  of  manners,  gives  him  the  power  of  a  sover- 
eign without  the  inconveniences  which  belong  to 
that  rank.  I  much  prefer  the  condition  of  an  Eng- 
lish gentleman  of  the  better  class  to  that  of  any 
potentate  in  Europe,  —  whether  for  travel,  or  for 
opportunity  of  society,  or  for  access  to  means  of 
science  or  study,  or  for  mere  comfort  and  easy 
healthy  relation  to  people  at  home. 

Such  as  we  have  seen  is  the  wealth  of  England ; 
a  mighty  mass,  and  made  good  in  whatever  details 
we  care  to  explore.  The  cause  and  spring  of  it  is 
the  wealth  of  temperament  in  the  people.  The 
wonder  of  Britain  is  this  plenteous  nature.  Her 
worthies  are  ever  surrounded  by  as  good  men  as 
themselves;  each  is  a  captain  a  hundred  strong, 
and  that  wealth  of  men  is  represented  again  in  the 
faculty  of  each  individual,  —  that  he  has  waste 
strength,  power  to  spare.  The  English  are  so  rich 
and  seem  to  have  established  a  tap-root  in  the 
bowels  of  the  planet,  because  they  are  constitution- 
ally fertile  and  creative. 

But  a  man  must  keep  an  eye  on  his  servants, 
if  he  would  not  have  them  rule  him.  Man  is  a 
shrewd  inventor  and  is  ever  taking  the  hint  of  a 
new  machine  from  his  own  structure,  adapting  some 
secret  of  his  own  anatomy  in  iron,  wood  and  leather 
to  some  required  function  in  the  work  of  the  world. 


162  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

But  it  is  found  that  the  machine  unmans  the  user. 
What  he  gains  in  making  cloth,  he  loses  in  general 
power.  There  should  be  temperance  in  making 
cloth,  as  well  as  in  eating.  A  man  should  not  be 
a  silk-worm,  nor  a  nation  a  tent  of  caterpillars. 
The  robust  rural  Saxon  degenerates  in  the  mills  to 
the  Leicester  stockinger,  to  the  imbecile  Manchester 
spinner,  —  far  on  the  way  to  be  spiders  and  nee- 
dles. The  incessant  repetition  of  the  same  hand- 
work dwarfs  the  man,  robs  him  of  his  strength,  wit 
and  versatility,  to  make  a  pin-polisher,  a  buckle- 
maker,  or  any  other  specialty ;  and  presently,  in  a 
change  of  industry,  whole  towns  are  sacrificed  like 
ant-hills,  when  the  fashion  of  shoe-strings  super- 
sedes buckles,  when  cotton  takes  the  place  of  linen, 
or  railways  of  turnpikes,  or  when  commons  are 
inclosed  by  landlords.  Then  society  is  admonished 
of  the  mischief  of  the  division  of  labor,  and  that 
the  best  political  economy  is  care  and  culture  of 
men ;  for  in  these  crises  all  are  ruined  except  such 
as  are  proper  individuals,  capable  of  thought  and 
of  new  choice  and  the  application  of  their  talent  to 
new  labor.  Then  again  come  in  new  calamities. 
England  is  aghast  at  the  disclosure  of  her  fraud  in 
the  adulteration  of  food,  of  drugs  and  of  almost 
every  fabric  in  her  mills  and  shops ;  finding  that 
milk  will  not  nourish,  nor  sugar  sweeten,  nor  bread 
satisfy,  nor  pepper  bite  the  tongue,  nor  glue  stick 


WEALTH.  163 

In  true  England  all  is  false  and  forged.  This 
too  is  the  reaction  of  machinery,  but  of  the  lar- 
ger machinery  of  commerce.  'T  is  not,  I  suppose, 
want  of  probity,  so  much  as  the  tyranny  of  trade, 
which  necessitates  a  perpetual  competition  of  under- 
selling, and  that  again  a  perpetual  deterioration  of 
the  fabric. 

The  machinery  has  proved,  like  the  balloon, 
unmanageable,  and  flies  away  with  the  aeronaut. 
Steam  from  the  first  hissed  and  screamed  to  warn 
him  ;  it  was  dreadful  with  its  explosion,  and  crushed 
the  engineer.  The  machinist  has  wrought  and 
watched,  engineers  and  firemen  without  number 
have  been  sacrificed  in  learning  to  tame  and  guide 
the  monster.  But  harder  still  it  has  proved  to 
resist  and  rule  the  dragon  Money,  with  his  paper 
wings.  Chancellors  and  Boards  of  Trade,  Pitt, 
Peel  and  Robinson  and  their  Parliaments  and  their 
whole  generation  adopted  false  principles,  and  went 
to  their  graves  in  the  belief  that  they  were  enriching 
the  country  which  they  were  impoverishing.  They 
congratulated  each  other  on  ruinous  expedients.  It 
is  rare  to  find  a  merchant  who  knows  why  a  crisis 
occurs  in  trade,  why  prices  rise  or  fall,  or  who 
knows  the  mischief  of  paper-money.  In  the  cul- 
mination of  national  prosperity,  in  the  annexation 
of  countries ;  building  of  ships,  depots,  towns ;  in 
the  influx  of  tons  of  gold  and  silver;  amid  the 


164  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

chuckle  of  chancellors  and  financiers,  it  was  found 
that  bread  rose  to  famine  prices,  that  the  yeoman 
was  forced  to  sell  his  cow  and  pig,  his  tools  and 
his  acre  of  land;  and  the  dreadful  barometer  of 
the  poor-rates  was  touching  the  point  of  ruin.  The 
poor-rate  was  sucking  in  the  solvent  classes  and 
forcing  an  exodus  of  farmers  and  mechanics.  "What 
befalls  from  the  violence  of  financial  crises,  befalls 
daily  in  the  violence  of  artificial  legislation. 

Such  a  wealth  has  England  earned,  ever  new, 
bounteous  and  augmenting.  But  the  question  re- 
curs, does  she  take  the  step  beyond,  namely  to  the 
wise  use,  in  view  of  the  supreme  wealth  of  na- 
tions ?  We  estimate  the  wisdom  of  nations  by  see- 
ing what  they  did  with  their  surplus  capital.  And, 
in  view  of  these  injuries,  some  compensation  has 
been  attempted  in  England.  A  part  of  the  money 
earned  returns  to  the  brain  to  buy  schools,  libra- 
ries, bishops,  astronomers,  chemists  and  artists 
with ;  and  a  part  to  repair  the  wrongs  of  this 
intemperate  weaving,  by  hospitals,  savings-banks, 
Mechanics'  Institutes,  public  grounds  and  other 
charities  and  amenities.  But  the  antidotes  are 
frightfully  inadequate,  and  the  evil  requires  a 
deeper  cure,  which  time  and  a  simpler  social  or- 
ganization must  supply.  At  present  she  does  not 
rule  her  wealth.  She  is  simply  a  good  England, 


WEALTH.  165 

but  no  divinity,  or  wise  and  instructed  soul.  She 
too  is  in  the  stream  of  fate,  one  victim  more  in  a 
common  catastrophe. 

But  being  in  the  fault,  she  has  the  misfortune  of 
greatness  to  be  held  as  the  chief  offender.  Eng- 
land must  be  held  responsible  for  the  despotism  of 
expense.  Her  prosperity,  the  splendor  which  so 
much  manhood  and  talent  and  perseverance  has 
thrown  upon  vulgar  aims,  is  the  very  argument  of 
materialism.  Her  success  strengthens  the  hands  of 
base  wealth.  Who  can  propose  to  youth  poverty 
and  wisdom,  when  mean  gain  has  arrived  at  the 
conquest  of  letters  and  arts ;  when  English  success 
has  grown  out  of  the  very  renunciation  of  princi- 
ples, and  the  dedication  to  outsides  ?  A  civility  of 
trifles,  of  money  and  expense,  an  erudition  of  sen- 
sation takes  place,  and  the  putting  as  many  imped- 
iments as  we  can  between  the  man  and  his  ob- 
jects. Hardly  the  bravest  among  them  have  the 
manliness  to  resist  it  successfully.  Hence  it  has 
come  that  not  the  aims  of  a  manly  life,  but  the 
means  of  meeting  a  certain  ponderous  expense,  is 
that  which  is  to  be  considered  by  a  youth  in  Eng- 
land emerging  from  his  minority.  A  large  family 
is  reckoned  a  misfortune.  And  it  is  a  consolation 
in  the  death  of  the  young,  that  a  source  of  expense 
is  closed. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

ARISTOCRACY. 

THE  feudal  character  of  the  English  state,  now 
that  it  is  getting  obsolete,  glares  a  little,  in  con- 
trast with  the  democratic  tendencies.  The  inequal- 
ity of  power  and  property  shocks  republican  nerves. 
Palaces,  halls,  villas,  walled  parks,  all  over  Eng- 
land, rival  the  splendor  of  royal  seats.  Many  of 
the  halls,  like  Haddon  or  Kedleston,  are  beautiful 
desolations.  The  proprietor  never  saw  them,  or 
never  lived  in  them.  Primogeniture  built  these 
sumptuous  piles,  and  I  suppose  it  is  the  sentiment 
of  every  traveller,  as  it  was  mine,  It  was  well  to 
come  ere  these  were  gone.  Primogeniture  is  a 
cardinal  rule  of  English  property  and  institutions. 
Laws,  customs,  manners,  the  very  persons  and 
faces,  affirm  it. 

The  frame  of  society  is  aristocratic,  the  taste  of 
the  people  is  loyal.  The  estates,  names  and  man- 
ners of  the  nobles  flatter  the  fancy  of  the  people 
and  conciliate  the  necessary  support.  In  spite  of 
broken  faith,  stolen  charters  and  the  devastation 
of  society  by  the  profligacy  of  the  court,  we  take 


ARISTOCRACY.  167 

sides  as  we  read  for  the  loyal  England  and  King 
Charles's  "  return  to  his  right  "  with  his  Cavaliers, 
—  knowing  what  a  heartless  trifler  he  is,  and  what 
a  crew  of  God-forsaken  robbers  they  are.  The 
people  of  England  knew  as  much.  But  the  fair 
idea  of  a  settled  government  connecting  itself  with 
heraldic  names,  with  the  written  and  oral  history 
of  Europe,  and,  at  last,  with  the  Hebrew  religion 
and  the  oldest  traditions  of  the  world,  was  too 
pleasing  a  vision  to  be  shattered  by  a  few  offensive 
realities  and  the  politics  of  shoe-makers  and  coster- 
mongers.  The  hopes  of  the  commoners  take  the 
same  direction  with  the  interest  of  the  patricians. 
Every  man  who  becomes  rich  buys  land  and  does 
what  he  can  to  fortify  the  nobility,  into  which  he 
hopes  to  rise.  The  Anglican  clergy  are  identified 
with  the  aristocracy.  Time  and  law  have  made 
the  joining  and  moulding  perfect  in  every  part. 
The  Cathedrals,  the  Universities,  the  national  mu- 
sic, the  popular  romances,  conspire  to  uphold  the 
heraldry  which  the  current  politics  of  the  day  are 
sapping.  The  taste  of  the  people  is  conservative. 
They  are  proud  of  the  castles,  and  of  the  language 
and  symbol  of  chivalry.  Even  the  word  lord  is 
the  luckiest  style  that  is  used  in  any  language  to 
designate  a  patrician.  The  superior  education  and 
manners  of  the  nobles  recommend  them  to  the 
country. 


168  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

The  Norwegian  pirate  got  what  he  could  and 
held  it  for  his  eldest  son.  The  Norman  noble,  who 
was  the  Norwegian  pirate  baptized,  did  likewise. 
There  was  this  advantage  of  Western  over  Oriental 
nobility,  that  this  was  recruited  from  below.  Eng- 
lish history  is  aristocracy  with  the  doors  open. 
Who  has  courage  and  faculty,  let  him  come  in.  Of 
course  the  terms  of  admission  to  this  club  are  hard 
and  high.  The  selfishness  of  the  nobles  comes  in 
aid  of  the  interest  of  the  nation  to  require  signal 
merit.  Piracy  and  war  gave  place  to  trade,  politics 
and  letters ;  the  war-lord  to  the  law-lord ;  the  law- 
lord  to  the  merchant  and  the  mill-owner ;  but  the 
privilege  was  kept,  whilst  the  means  of  obtaining 
it  were  changed.  % 

The  foundations  of  these  families  lie  deep  in 
Norwegian  exploits  by  sea  and  Saxon  sturdiness 
on  land.  All  nobility  in  its  beginnings  was  some- 
body's natural  superiority.  The  things  these  Eng- 
lish have  done  were  not  done  without  peril  of  life, 
nor  without  wisdom  and  conduct ;  and  the  first 
hands,  it  may  be  presumed,  were  often  challenged 
to  show  their  right  to  their  honors,  or  yield  them  to 
better  men.  "  He  that  will  be  a  head,  let  him  be 
a  bridge,"  said  the  Welsh  chief  Benegridran,  when 
he  carried  all  his  men  over  the  river  on  his  back. 
"  He  shall  have  the  book,"  said  the  mother  of  Al- 
fred, "who  can  read  it; "  and  Alfred  won  it  by  that 


ARISTOCRACY.  169 

title  :  and  I  make  no  doubt  that  feudal  tenure  was 
no  sinecure,  but  baron,  knight  and  tenant  often  had 
their  memories  refreshed,  in  regard  to  the  service 
by  which  they  held  their  lands.  The  De  Veres, 
Bohuns,  Mowbrays  and  Plantagenets  were  not  ad- 
dicted to  contemplation.  The  Middle  Age  adorned 
itself  with  proofs  of  manhood  and  devotion.  Of 
Richard  Beauchamp,  Earl  of  Warwick,  the  Emperor 
told  Henry  V.  that  no  Christian  king  had  such  an- 
other knight  for  wisdom,  nurture  and  manhood, 
and  caused  him  to  be  named,  "  Father  of  curtesie." 
"  Our  success  in  France,"  says  the  historian,  "  lived 
and  died  with  him."  l 

The  war-lord  earned  his  honors,  and  no  donation 
of  land  was  large,  as  long  as  it  brought  the  duty 
of  protecting  it,  hour  by  hour,  against  a  terrible 
enemy.  In  France  and  in  England,  the  nobles 
were,  down  to  a  late  day,  born  and  bred  to  war : 
and  the  duel,  which  in  peace  still  held  them  to  the 
risks  of  war,  diminished  the  envy  that  in  trading 
and  studious  nations  would  else  have  pried  into 
their  title.  They  were  looked  on  as  men  who 
played  high  for  a  great  stake. 

Great  estates  are  not  sinecures,  if  they  are  to  be 

kept  great.     A   creative   economy  is   the  fuel  of 

magnificence.     In  the  same  line  of  Warwick,  the 

successor  next  but  one  to  Beauchamp  was  the  stout 

1  Fuller's  Worthies,  II.  p.  472. 


170  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

earl  of  Henry  VI.  and  Edward  IV.  Few  esteemed 
themselves  in  the  mode,  whose  heads  were  not 
adorned  with  the  black  ragged  staff,  his  badge.  At 
his  house  in  London,  six  oxen  were  daily  eaten  at  a 
breakfast,  and  every  tavern  was  full  of  his  meat, 
and  who  had  any  acquaintance  in  his  family  should 
have  as  much  boiled  and  roast  as  he  could  carry  on 
a  long  dagger. 

The  new  age  brings  new  qualities  into  request ; 
the  virtues  of  pirates  gave  way  to  those  of  planters, 
merchants,  senators  and  scholars.  Comity,  social 
talent  and  fine  manners,  no  doubt,  have  had  their 
part  also.  I  have  met  somewhere  with  a  histori- 
ette,  which,  whether  more  or  less  true  in  its  particu- 
lars, carries  a  general  truth.  "  How  came  the  Duke 
of  Bedford  by  his  great  landed  estates  ?  His  an- 
cestor having  travelled  on  the  continent,  a  lively, 
pleasant  man,  became  the  companion  of  a  foreign 
prince  wrecked  on  the  Dorsetshire  coast,  where  Mr. 
Russell  lived.  The  prince  recommended  him  to 
Henry  VIII.,  who,  liking  his  company,  gave  him  a 
large  share  of  the  plundered  church  lands." 

The  pretence  is  that  the  noble  is  of  unbroken 
descent  from  the  Norman,  and  has  never  worked 
for  eight  hundred  years.  But  the  fact  is  otherwise. 
Where  is  Bohun  ?  where  is  De  Vere  ?  The  law- 
yer, the  farmer,  the  silkmercer  lies  perdu  under 
the  coronet,  and  winks  to  the  antiquary  to  say 


ARISTOCRACY.  171 

nothing ;  especially  skilful  lawyers,  nobody's  sons, 
who  did  some  piece  of  work  at  a  nice  moment  for 
government  and  were  rewarded  with  ermine. 

The  national  tastes  of  the  English  do  not  lead 
them  to  the  life  of  the  courtier,  but  to  secure  the 
comfort  and  independence  of  their  homes.  The 
aristocracy  are  marked  by  their  predilection  for 
country-life.  They  are  called  the  county-families. 
They  have  often  no  residence  in  London  and  only 
go  thither  a  short  time,  during  the  season,  to  see 
the  opera  ;  but  they  concentrate  the  love  and  labor 
of  many  generations  on  the  building,  planting  and 
decoration  of  their  homesteads.  Some  of  them  are 
too  old  and  too  proud  to  wear  titles,  or,  as  Sheridan 
said  of  Coke,  "  disdain  to  hide  their  head  in  a 
coronet ;  "  and  some  curious  examples  are  cited  to 
show  the  stability  of  English  families.  Their  prov- 
erb is,  that  fifty  miles  from  London,  a  family  will 
last  a  hundred  years ;  at  a  hundred  miles,  two  hun- 
dred years ;  and  so  on ;  but  I  doubt  that  steam,  the 
enemy  of  time  as  well  as  of  space,  will  disturb 
these  ancient  rules.  Sir  Henry  Wotton  says  of 
the  first  Duke  of  Buckingham,  "He  was  born  at 
Brookeby  in  Leicestershire,  where  his  ancestors 
had  chiefly  continued  about  the  space  of  four  hun- 
dred years,  rather  without  obscurity,  than  with  any 
great  lustre."  l  Wraxall  says  that  in  1781,  Lord 
1  Reliquiae  Wottoniance,  p.  208. 


172  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Surrey,  afterwards  Duke  of  Norfolk,  told  him  that 
when  the  year  1783  should  arrive,  he  meant  to  give 
a  grand  festival  to  all  the  descendants  of  the  body 
of  Jockey  of  Norfolk,  to  mark  the  day  when  the 
dukedom  should  have  remained  three  hundred 
years  in  their  house,  since  its  creation  by  Richard 
III.  Pepys  tells  us,  in  writing  of  an  Earl  Oxford, 
in  1666,  that  the  honor  had  now  remained  in  that 
name  and  blood  six  hundred  years. 

This  long  descent  of  families  and  this  cleaving 
through  ages  to  the  same  spot  of  ground,  capti- 
vates the  imagination.  It  has  too  a  connection  with 
the  names  of  the  towns  and  districts  of  the  country. 

The  names  are  excellent,  —  an  atmosphere  of 
legendary  melody  spread  over  the  land.  Older 
than  all  epics  and  histories  which  clothe  a  nation, 
this  undershirt  sits  close  to  the  body.  What  his- 
tory too,  and  what  stores  of  primitive  and  savage 
observation  it  infolds  !  Cambridge  is  the  bridge 
of  the  Cam  ;  Sheffield  the  field  of  the  river  Sheaf ; 
Leicester  the  castra,  or  camp,  of  the  Lear,  or  Leir 
(now  Soar) ;  Rochdale,  of  the  Roch ;  Exeter  or 
Excester,  the  castra  of  the  Ex;  Exmouth,  Dart- 
mouth, Sidmouth,  Teignmouth,  the  mouths  of  the 
Ex,  Dart,  Sid  and  Teign  rivers.  Waltham  is 
strong  town  ;  Radcliffe  is  red  cliff ;  and  so  on :  — 
a  sincerity  and  use  in  naming  very  striking  to  an 
American,  whose  country  is  whitewashed  all  over 


ARISTOCRACY.  173 

by  unmeaning  names,  the  cast-off  clothes  of  the 
country  from  which  its  emigrants  came ;  or  named 
at  a  pinch  from  a  psalm-tune.  But  the  English 
are  those  "  barbarians  "  of  Jamblichus,  who  "  are 
stable  in  their  manners,  and  firmly  continue  to  em- 
ploy the  same  words,  which  also  are  dear  to  the 


'Tis  an  old  sneer  that  the  Irish  peerage  drew 
their  names  from  playbooks.  The  English  lords 
do  not  call  their  lands  after  their  own  names,  but 
call  themselves  after  their  lands,  as  if  the  man 
represented  the  country  that  bred  him ;  and  they 
rightly  wear  the  token  of  the  glebe  that  gave  them 
birth,  suggesting  that  the  tie  is  not  cut,  but  that 
there  in  London,  —  the  crags  of  Argyle,  the  kail 
of  Cornwall,  the  downs  of  Devon,  the  iron  of 
Wales,  the  clays  of  Stafford  are  neither  forgetting 
nor  forgotten,  but  know  the  man  who  was  born 
by  them  and  who,  like  the  long  line  of  his  fathers, 
has  carried  that  crag,  that  shore,  dale,  fen,  or  wood- 
land, in  his  blood  and  manners.  It  has,  too,  the 
advantage  of  suggesting  responsibleness.  A  sus- 
ceptible man  could  not  wear  a  name  which  repre- 
sented in  a  strict  sense  a  city  or  a  county  of  Eng- 
land, without  hearing  in  it  a  challenge  to  duty  and 
honor. 

The  predilection  of  the  patricians  for  residence 
in  the  country,  combined  with  the  degree  of  lib- 


174  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

erty  possessed  by  the  peasant,  makes  the  safety  of 
the  English  hall.  Mirabeau  wrote  prophetically 
from  England,  in  1784,  "  If  revolution  break  out 
in  France,  I  tremble  for  the  aristocracy :  their 
chateaux  will  be  reduced  to  ashes  and  their  blood 
spilt  in  torrents.  The  English  tenant  would  de- 
fend his  lord  to  the  last  extremity."  The  English 
go  to  their  estates  for  grandeur.  The  French  live 
at  court,  and  exile  themselves  to  their  estates  for 
economy.  As  they  do  not  mean  to  live  with  their 
tenants,  they  do  not  conciliate  them,  but  wring 
from  them  the  last  sous.  Evelyn  writes  from 
Blois,  in  1644  :  "  The  wolves  are  here  in  such  num- 
bers, that  they  often  come  and  take  children  out  of 
the  streets  ;  yet  will  not  the  Duke,  who  is  sovereign 
here,  permit  them  to  be  destroyed." 

In  evidence  of  the  wealth  amassed  by  ancient 
families,  the  traveller  is  shown  the  palaces  in  Picca- 
dilly, Burlington  House,  Devonshire  House,  Lans- 
downe  House  in  Berkshire  Square,  and  lower  down 
in  the  city,  a  few  noble  houses  which  still  withstand 
in  all  their  amplitude  the  encroachment  of  streets. 
The  Duke  of  Bedford  includes  or  included  a  mile 
square  in  the  heart  of  London,  where  the  Brit- 
ish Museum,  once  Montague  House,  now  stands, 
and  the  land  occupied  by  Woburn  Square,  Bedford 
Square,  Russell  Square.  The  Marquis  of  West- 
minster built  within  a  few  years  the  series  of 


ARISTOCRACY.  175 

squares  called  Belgravia.  Stafford  House  is  the 
noblest  palace  in  London.  Northumberland  House 
holds  its  place  by  Charing  Cross.  Chesterfield 
House  remains  in  Audley  Street.  Sion  House  and 
Holland  House  are  in  the  suburbs.  But  most  of 
the  historical  houses  are  masked  or  lost  in  the  mod- 
ern uses  to  which  trade  or  charity  has  converted 
them.  A  multitude  of  town  palaces  contain  ines- 
timable galleries  of  art. 

In  the  country,  the  size  of  private  estates  is 
more  impressive.  From  Barnard  Castle  I  rode  on 
the  highway  twenty-three  miles  from  High  Force, 
a  fall  of  the  Tees,  towards  Darlington,  past  Raby 
Castle,  through  the  estate  of  the  Duke  of  Cleve- 
land. The  Marquis  of  Breadalbane  rides  out  of 
his  house  a  hundred  miles  in  a  straight  line  to  the 
sea,  on  his  own  property.  The  Duke  of  Suther- 
land owns  the  county  of  Sutherland,  stretching 
across  Scotland  from  sea  to  sea.  The  Duke  of 
Devonshire,  besides  his  other  estates,  owns  96,000 
acres  in  the  County  of  Derby.  The  Duke  of  Rich- 
mond has  40,000  acres  at  Goodwood  and  300,000 
at  Gordon  Castle.  The  Duke  of  Norfolk's  park  in 
Sussex  is  fifteen  miles  in  circuit.  An  agriculturist 
bought  lately  the  island  of  Lewes,  in  Hebrides, 
containing  500,000  acres.  The  possessions  of  the 
Earl  of  Lonsdale  gave  him  eight  seats  in  Parlia- 
ment. This  is  the  Heptarchy  again;  and  before 


176  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  Reform  of  1832,  one  hundred  and  fifty-four 
persons  sent  three  hundred  and  seven  members  to 
Parliament.  The  borough-mongers  governed  Eng- 
land. 

These  large  domains  are  growing  larger.  The 
great  estates  are  absorbing  the  small  freeholds.  In 
1786  the  soil  of  England  was  owned  by  250,000 
corporations  and  proprietors  ;  and  in  1822,  by  32,- 
000.  These  broad  estates  find  room  in  this  narrow 
island.  All  over  England,  scattered  at  short  inter- 
vals among  ship-yards,  mills,  mines  and  forges,  are 
the  paradises  of  the  nobles,  where  the  livelong 
repose  and  refinement  are  heightened  by  the  con- 
trast with  the  roar  of  industry  and  necessity,  out 
of  which  you  have  stepped  aside. 

I  was  surprised  to  observe  the  very  small  attend- 
ance usually  in  the  House  of  Lords.  Out  of  573 
peers,  on  ordinary  days  only  twenty  or  thirty. 
Where  are  they  ?  I  asked.  "  At  home  on  their  es- 
tates, devoured  by  ennui,  or  in  the  Alps,  or  up  the 
Rhine,  in  the  Harz  Mountains,  or  in  Egypt,  or  in 
India,  on  the  Ghauts."  But,  with  such  interests  at 
stake,  how  can  these  men  afford  to  neglect  them  ? 
"  O,"  replied  my  friend,  "  why  should  they  work  for 
themselves,  when  every  man  in  England  works  for 
them  and  will  suffer  before  they  come  to  harm  ?  " 
The  hardest  radical  instantly  uncovers  and  changes 


ARISTOCRACY.  177 

his  tone  to  a  lord.  It  was  remarked,  on  the  10th 
April,  1848  (the  day  of  the  Chartist  demonstra- 
tion), that  the  upper  classes  were  for  the  first  time 
actively  interesting  themselves  in  their  own  de- 
fence, and  men  of  rank  were  sworn  special  consta- 
bles with  the  rest.  "  Besides,  why  need  they  sit 
out  the  debate  ?  Has  not  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
at  this  moment,  their  proxies,  — the  proxies  of  fifty 
peers  —  in  his  pocket,  to  vote  for  them  if  there  be 
an  emergency?  " 

It  is  however  true  that  the  existence  of  the 
House  of  Peers  as  a  branch  of  the  government  en- 
titles them  to  fill  half  the  Cabinet;  and  their 
weight  of  property  and  station  gives  them  a  virtual 
nomination  of  the  other  half;  whilst  they  have 
their  share  in  the  subordinate  offices,  as  a  school 
of  training.  This  monopoly  of  political  power  has 
given  them  their  intellectual  and  social  eminence 
in  Europe.  A  few  law  lords  and  a  few  political 
lords  take  the  brunt  of  public  business.  In  the 
army,  the  nobility  fill  a  large  part  of  the  high  com- 
missions, and  give  to  these  a  tone  of  expense  and 
splendor  and  also  of  exclusiveness.  They  have 
borne  their  full  share  of  duty  and  danger  in  this 
service,  and  there  are  few  noble  families  which  have 
not  paid,  in  some  of  their  members,  the  debt  of  life 
or  limb  in  the  sacrifices  of  the  Russian  war.  For 
the  rest,  the  nobility  have  the  lead  in  matters  of 

VOL.  V.  13 


178  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

state  and  of  expense ;  in  questions  of  taste,  in  so- 
cial usages,  in  convivial  and  domestic  hospitalities. 
In  general,  all  that  is  required  of  them  is  to  sit 
securely,  to  preside  at  public  meetings,  to  coun- 
tenance charities  and  to  give  the  example  of  that 
decorum  so  dear  to  the  British  heart. 

If  one  asks,  in  the  critical  spirit  of  the  day,  what 
service  this  class  have  rendered  ?  —  uses  appear,  or 
they  would  have  perished  long  ago.  Some  of  these 
are  easily  enumerated,  others  more  subtle  make  a 
part  of  unconscious  history.  Their  institution  is 
one  step  in  the  progress  of  society.  For  a  race 
yields  a  nobility  in  some  form,  however  we  name 
the  lords,  as  surely  as  it  yields  women. 

The  English  nobles  are  high-spirited,  active, 
educated  men,  born  to  wealth  and  power,  who 
have  run  through  every  country  and  kept  in  every 
country  the  best  company,  have  seen  every  secret 
of  art  and  nature,  and,  when  men  of  any  ability  or 
ambition,  have  been  consulted  in  the  conduct  of 
every  important  action.  You  cannot  wield  great 
agencies  without  lending  yourself  to  them,  and 
when  it  happens  that  the  spirit  of  the  earl  meets 
his  rank  and  duties,  we  have  the  best  examples  of 
behavior.  Power  of  any  kind  readily  appears  in 
the  manners;  and  beneficent  power,  le  talent  de 
bien  faire,  gives  a  majesty  which  cannot  be  con- 
cealed or  resisted. 


ARISTOCRACY.  179 

These  people  seem  to  gain  as  much  as  they  lose 
by  their  position.  They  survey  society  as  from  the 
top  of  St.  Paul's,  and  if  they  never  hear  plain 
truth  from  men,  they  see  the  best  of  every  thing, 
in  every  kind,  and  they  see  things  so  grouped  and 
amassed  as  to  infer  easily  the  sum  and'  genius,  in- 
stead of  tedious  particularities.  Their  good  behav- 
ior deserves  all  its  fame,  and  they  have  that  sim- 
plicity and  that  air  of  repose  which  are  the  finest 
ornament  of  greatness. 

The  upper  classes  have  only  birth,  say  the  people 
here,  and  not  thoughts.  Yes,  but  they  have  man- 
ners, and  it  is  wonderful  how  much  talent  runs  into 
manners  :  —  nowhere  and  never  so  much  as  in  Eng- 
land. They  have  the  sense  of  superiority,  the  ab- 
sence of  all  the  ambitious  effort  which  disgusts  in 
the  aspiring  classes,  a  pure  tone  of  thought  and 
feeling,  and  the  power  to  command,  among  their 
other  luxuries,  the  presence  of  the  most  accom- 
plished men  in  their  festive  meetings. 

Loyalty  is  in  the  English  a  sub-religion.  They 
wear  the  laws  as  ornaments,  and  walk  by  their 
faith  in  their  painted  May-Fair  as  if  among  the 
forms  of  gods.  The  economist  of  1855  who  asks, 
Of  what  use  are  the  lords  ?  may  learn  of  Franklin 
to  ask,  Of  what  use  is  a  baby  ?  They  have  been  a 
social  church  proper  to  inspire  sentiments  mutually 
honoring  the  lover  and  the  loved.  Politeness  is 


180  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  ritual  of  society,  as  prayers  are  of  the  church, 
a  school  of  manners,  and  a  gentle  blessing  to  the 
age  in  which  it  grew.  'T  is  a  romance  adorning 
English  life  with  a  larger  horizon ;  a  midway 
heaven,  fulfilling  to  their  sense  their  fairy  tales  and 
poetry.  This,  just  as  far  as  the  breeding  of  the 
nobleman  really  made  him  brave,  handsome,  ac- 
complished and  great-hearted. 

On  general  grounds,  whatever  tends  to  form 
manners  or  to  finish  men,  has  a  great  value.  Every 
one  who  has  tasted  the  delight  of  friendship  will  re- 
spect every  social  guard  which  our  manners  can  es- 
tablish, tending  to  secure  from  the  intrusion  of  frivo- 
lous and  distasteful  people.  The  jealousy  of  every 
class  to  guard  itself  is  a  testimony  to  the  reality 
they  have  found  in  life.  When  a  man  once  knows 
that  he  has  done  justice  to  himself,  let  him  dismiss 
all  terrors  of  aristocracy  as  superstitions,  so  far  as 
he  is  concerned.  He  who  keeps  the  door  of  a  mine, 
whether  of  cobalt,  or  mercury,  or  nickel,  or  plum- 
bago, securely  knows  that  the  world  cannot  do 
without  him.  Every  body  who  is  real  is  open  and 
ready  for  that  which  is  also  real. 

Besides,  these  are  they  who  make  England  that 
strongbox  and  museum  it  is  ;  who  gather  and  pro- 
tect works  of  art,  dragged  from  amidst  burning 
cities  and  revolutionary  countries,  and  brought 
hither  out  of  all  the  world.  I  look  with  respect  at 


ARISTOCRACY.  181 

houses  six,  seven,  eight  hundred,  or,  like  Warwick 
Castle,  nine  hundred  years  old.  I  pardoned  high 
park-fences,  when  I  saw  that  besides  does  and 
pheasants,  these  have  preserved  Arundel  marbles, 
Townley  galleries,  Howard  and  Spenserian  libra- 
ries, Warwick  and  Portland  vases,  Saxon  manu- 
scripts, monastic  architectures,  millennial  trees  and 
breeds  of  cattle  elsewhere  extinct.  In  these  manors, 
after  the  frenzy  of  war  and  destruction  subsides 
a  little,  the  antiquary  finds  the  frailest  Roman  jar 
or  crumbling  Egyptian  mummy-case,  without  so 
much  as  a  new  layer  of  dust,  keeping  the  series  of 
history  unbroken  and  waiting  for  its  interpreter, 
who  is  sure  to  arrive.  These  lords  are  the  treas- 
urers and  librarians  of  mankind,  engaged  by  their 
pride  and  wealth  to  this  function. 

Yet  there  were  other  works  for  British  dukes 
to  do.  George  Loudon,  Quintinye,  Evelyn,  had 
taught  them  to  make  gardens.  Arthur  Young, 
Bakewell  and  Mechi  have  made  them  agricultural. 
Scotland  was  a  camp  until  the  day  of  Culloden. 
The  Dukes  of  Athol,  Sutherland,  Buccleugh  and 
the  Marquis  of  Breadalbane  have  introduced  the 
rape-culture,  the  sheep-farm,  wheat,  drainage,  the 
plantation  of  forests,  the  artificial  replenishment  of 
lakes  and  ponds  with  fish,  the  renting  of  game-pre- 
serves. Against  the  cry  of  the  old  tenantry  and  the 
sympathetic  cry  of  the  English  press,  they  have 


182  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

rooted  out  and  planted  anew,  and  now  six  millions 
of  people  live,  and  live  better,  on  the  same  land 
that  fed  three  millions. 

The  English  barons,  in  every  period,  have  been 
brave  and  great,  after  the  estimate  and  opinion  of 
their  times.  The  grand  old  halls  scattered  up  and 
down  in  England,  are  dumb  vouchers  to  the  state 
and  broad  hospitality  of  their  ancient  lords.  Shak- 
speare's  portraits  of  good  Duke  Humphrey,  of  War- 
wick, of  Northumberland,  of  Talbot,  were  drawn 
in  strict  consonance  with  the  traditions.  A  sketch 
of  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  from  the  pen  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  archbishop  Parker  ; l  Lord  Herbert  of 
Cherbury's  autobiography ;  the  letters  and  essays 
of  Sir  Philip  Sidney ;  the  anecdotes  preserved  by 
the  antiquaries  Fuller  and  Collins  ;  some  glimpses 
at  the  interiors  of  noble  houses,  which  we  owe  to 
Pepys  and  Evelyn ;  the  details  which  Ben  Jonson's 
masques  (performed  at  Kenilworth,  Althorpe,  Bel- 
voir  and  other  noble  houses),  record  or  suggest; 
down  to  Aubrey's  passages  of  the  life  of  Hobbes  in 
the  house  of  the  Earl  of  Devon,  are  favorable  pic- 
tures of  a  romantic  style  of  manners.  Penshurst 
still  shines  for  us,  and  its  Christmas  revels, "  where 
logs  not  burn,  but  men."  At  Wilton  House  the 
"Arcadia"  was  written,  amidst  conversations  with 
Fulke  Greville,  Lord  Brooke,  a  man  of  no  vulgar 
1  Dibdin's  Literary  Reminiscences,  vol.  1,  xii. 


ARISTOCRACY.  183 

mind,  as  his  own  poems  declare  him.  I  must  hold 
Ludlow  Castle  an  honest  house,  for  which  Mil- 
ton's "  Comus  "  was  written,  and  the  company  nobly 
bred  which  performed  it  with  knowledge  and  sym- 
pathy. In  the  roll  of  nobles  are  found  poets,  phi- 
losophers, chemists,  astronomers,  also  men  of  solid 
virtues  and  of  lofty  sentiments ;  often  they  have 
been  the  friends  and  patrons  of  genius  and  learn- 
ing, and  especially  of  the  fine  arts ;  and  at  this  mo- 
ment, almost  every  great  house  has  its  sumptuous 
picture-gallery. 

Of  course  there  is  another  side  to  this  gorgeous 
show.  Every  victory  was  the  defeat  of  a  party 
only  less  worthy.  Castles  are  proud  things,  but 
't  is  safest  to  be  outside  of  them.  War  is  a  foul 
game,  and  yet  war  is  not  the  worst  part  of  aristo- 
cratic history.  In  later  times,  when  the  baron,  edu- 
cated only  for  war,  with  his  brains  paralyzed  by 
his  stomach,  found  himself  idle  at  home,  he  grew 
fat  and  wanton  and  a  sorry  brute.  Grammont, 
Pepys  and  Evelyn  show  the  kennels  to  which  the 
king  and  court  went  in  quest  of  pleasure.  Prosti- 
tutes taken  from  the  theatres  were  made  duchesses, 
their  bastards  dukes  and  earls.  "  The  young  men 
sat  uppermost,  the  old  serious  lords  were  out  of 
favor."  The  discourse  that  the  king's  companions 
had  with  him  was  "poor  and  frothy."  No  man 
who  valued  his  head  might  do  what  these  pot-corn- 


184  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

panions  familiarly  did  with  the  king.  In  logical 
sequence  of  these  dignified  revels,  Pepys  can  tell 
the  beggarly  shifts  to  which  the  king  was  reduced, 
who  could  not  find  paper  at  his  council  table,  and 
"  no  handkerchers  "  in  his  wardrobe,  "  and  but 
three  bands  to  his  neck,"  and  the  linen-draper  and 
the  stationer  were  out  of  pocket  and  refusing  to 
trust  him,  and  the  baker  will  not  bring  bread  any 
longer.  Meantime  the  English  Channel  was  swept 
and  London  threatened  by  the  Dutch  fleet,  manned 
too  by  English  sailors,  who,  having  been  cheated 
of  their  pay  for  years  by  the  king,  enlisted  with  the 
enemy. 

The  Selwyn  correspondence,  in  the  reign  of 
George  III.,  discloses  a  rottenness  in  the  aristoc- 
racy which  threatened  to  decompose  the  state.  The 
sycophancy  and  sale  of  votes  and  honor,  for  place 
and  title  ;  lewdness,  gaming,  smuggling,  bribery 
and  cheating ;  the  sneer  at  the  childish  indiscretion 
of  quarrelling  with  ten  thousand  a  year ;  the  want 
of  ideas ;  the  splendor  of  the  titles,  and  the  apathy 
of  the  nation,  are  instructive,  and  make  the  reader 
pause  and  explore  the  firm  bounds  which  confined 
these  vices  to  a  handful  of  rich  men.  In  the  reign 
of  the  Fourth  George,  things  do  not  seem  to  have 
mended,  and  the  rotten  debauchee  let  down  from  a 
window  by  an  inclined  plane  into  his  coach  to  take 
the  air,  was  a  scandal  to  Europe  which  the  ill  fame 


ARTS  TO  CRA  CY.  1 85 

of  his  queen  and  of  his  family  did  nothing  to  re- 
trieve. 

Under  the  present  reign  the  perfect  decorum  of 
the  Court  is  thought  to  have  put  a  check  on  the 
gross  vices  of  the  aristocracy ;  yet  gaming,  racing, 
drinking  and  mistresses  bring  them  down,  and  the 
democrat  can  still  gather  scandals,  if  he  will.  Dis- 
mal anecdotes  abound,  verifying  the  gossip  of  the 
last  generation,  of  dukes  served  by  bailiffs,  with  all 
their  plate  in  pawn ;  of  great  lords  living  by  the 
showing  of  their  houses,  and  of  an  old  man  wheeled 
in  his  chair  from  room  to  room,  whilst  his  cham- 
bers are  exhibited  to  the  visitor  for  money ;  of  ru- 
ined dukes  and  earls  living  in  exile  for  debt.  The 
historic  names  of  the  Buckinghams,  Beauforts, 
Marlboroughs  and  Hertfords  have  gained  no  new 
lustre,  and  now  and  then  darker  scandals  break 
out,  ominous  as  the  new  chapters  added  under 
the  Orleans  dynasty  to  the  "  Causes  Celdbres  "  in 
France.  Even  peers  who  are  men  of  worth  and 
public  spirit  are  overtaken  and  embarrassed  by 
their  vast  expense.  The  respectable  Duke  of  Dev- 
onshire, willing  to  be  the  Mecaenas  and  Lucullus  of 
his  island,  is  reported  to  have  said  that  he  cannot 
live  at  Chatsworth  but  one  month  in  the  year. 
Their  many  houses  eat  them  up.  They  cannot  sell 
them,  because  they  are  entailed.  They  will  not  let 
them,  for  pride's  sake,  but  keep  them  empty,  aired, 


186  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

and  the  grounds  mown  and  dressed,  at  a  cost  of 
four  or  five  thousand  pounds  a  year.  The  spend- 
ing is  for  a  great  part  in  servants,  in  many  houses 
exceeding  a  hundred. 

Most  of  them  are  only  chargeable  with  idleness, 
which,  because  it  squanders  such  vast  power  of 
benefit,  has  the  mischief  of  crime.  "  They  might 
be  little  Providences  on  earth,"  said  my  friend, 
"and  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  jockeys  and  fops." 
Campbell  says,  "  Acquaintance  with  the  nobility, 
I  could  never  keep  up.  It  requires  a  life  of  idle- 
ness, dressing  and  attendance  on  their  parties." 
I  suppose  too  that  a  feeling  of  self-respect  is  driv- 
ing cultivated  men  out  of  this  society,  as  if  the 
noble  were  slow  to  receive  the  lessons  of  the  times 
and  had  not  learned  to  disguise  his  pride  of  place. 
A  man  of  wit,  who  is  also  one  of  the  celebrities  of 
wealth  and  fashion,  confessed  to  his  friend  that 
he  could  not  enter  their  houses  without  being  made 
to  feel  that  they  were  great  lords,  and  he  a  low 
plebeian.  With  the  tribe  of  artistes,  including  the 
musical  tribe,  the  patrician  morgue  keeps  no  terms, 
but  excludes  them.  When  Julia  Grisi  and  Mario 
sang  at  the  houses  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and 
other  grandees,  a  cord  was  stretched  between  the 
singer  and  the  company. 

When  every  noble  was  a  soldier,  they  were  care- 
fully bred  to  great  personal  prowess.  The  educa- 


ARISTOCRACY.  187 

tion  of  a  soldier  is  a  simpler  affair  than  that  of  an 
earl  in  the  nineteenth  century.  And  this  was  very 
seriously  pursued ;  they  were  expert  in  every  spe- 
cies of  equitation,  to  the  most  dangerous  practices, 
and  this  down  to  the  accession  of  William  of  Or- 
ange. But  graver  men  appear  to  have  trained 
their  sons  for  civil  affairs.  Elizabeth  extended  her 
thought  to  the  future ;  and  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in 
his  letter  to  his  brother,  and  Milton  and  Evelyn, 
gave  plain  and  hearty  counsel.  Already  too  the 
English  noble  and  squire  were  preparing  for  the 
career  of  the  country-gentleman  and  his  peaceable 
expense.  They  went  from  city  to  city,  learning 
receipts  to  make  perfumes,  sweet  powders,  poman- 
ders, antidotes,  gathering  seeds,  gems,  coins  and 
divers  curiosities,  preparing  for  a  private  life  there- 
after, in  which  they  should  take  pleasure  in  these 
recreations. 

All  advantages  given  to  absolve  the  young  patri- 
cian from  intellectual  labor  are  of  course  mistaken. 
"In  the  university,  noblemen  are  exempted  from 
the  public  exercises  for  the  degree,  &c.,  by  which 
they  attain  a  degree  called  honorary.  At  the  same 
time,  the  fees  they  have  to  pay  for  matriculation, 
and  on  all  other  occasions,  are  much  higher." l 
Fuller  records  "  the  observation  of  foreigners,  that 
Englishmen,  by  making  their  children  gentlemen 
1  Huber,  History  of  English  Universities. 


188  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

before  they  are  men,  cause  they  are  so  seldom  wise 
men."  This  cockering  justifies  Dr.  Johnson's  bit- 
ter apology  for  primogeniture,  that  "  it  makes  but 
one  fool  in  a  family." 

The  revolution  in  society  has  reached  this  class. 
The  great  powers  of  industrial  art  have  no  exclu- 
sion of  name  or  blood.  The  tools  of  our  time, 
namely  steam,  ships,  printing,  money  and  popular 
education,  belong  to  those  who  can  handle  them ; 
and  their  effect  has  been  that  advantages  once  con- 
fined to  men  of  family  are  now  open  to  the  whole 
middle  class.  The  road  that  grandeur  levels  for 
his  coach,  toil  can  travel  in  his  cart. 

This  is  more  manifest  every  day,  but  I  think  it 
is  true  throughout  English  history.  English  his- 
tory, wisely  read,  is  the  vindication  of  the  brain  of 
that  people.  Here  at  last  were  climate  and  condi- 
tion friendly  to  the  working  faculty.  Who  now 
will  work  and  dare,  shall  rule.  This  is  the  charter, 
or  the  chartism,  which  fogs  and  seas  and  rains 
proclaimed,  —  that  intellect  and  personal  force 
should  make  the  law ;  that  industry  and  adminis- 
trative talent  should  administer ;  that  work  should 
wear  the  crown.  I  know  that  not  this,  but  something 
else  is  pretended.  The  fiction  with  which  the 
noble  and  the  bystander  equally  please  themselves 
is  that  the  former  is  of  unbroken  descent  from  the 
Norman,  and  so  has  never  worked  for  eight  hun- 


ARISTOCRACY.  189 

dred  years.  All  the  families  are  new,  but  the 
name  is  old,  and  they  have  made  a  covenant  with 
their  memories  not  to  disturb  it.  But  the  analysis 
of  the  peerage  and  gentry  shows  the  rapid  decay 
and  extinction  of  old  families,  the  continual  re- 
cruiting of  these  from  new  blood.  The  doors, 
though  ostentatiously  guarded,  are  really  open,  and 
hence  the  power  of  the  bribe.  All  the  barriers 
to  rank  only  whet  the  thirst  and  enhance  the  prize. 
"  Now,"  said  Nelson,  when  clearing  for  battle,  "  a 
peerage,  or  Westminster  Abbey ! "  "I  have  no 
illusion  left,"  said  Sydney  Smith,  "  but  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury."  "  The  lawyers,"  said  Burke, 
"  are  only  birds  of  passage  in  this  House  of  Com- 
mons," and  then  added,  with  a  new  figure,  "they 
have  their  best  bower  anchor  in  the  House  of 
Lords." 

Another  stride  that  has  been  taken  appears  in 
the  perishing  of  heraldry.  Whilst  the  privileges 
of  nobility  are  passing  to  the  middle  class,  the 
badge  is  discredited  and  the  titles  of  lordship  are 
getting  musty  and  cumbersome.  I  wonder  that 
sensible  men  have  not  been  already  impatient  of 
them.  They  belong,  with  wigs,  powder  and  scarlet 
coats,  to  an  earlier  age  and  may  be  advantageously 
consigned,  with  paint  and  tattoo,  to  the  dignitaries 
of  Australia  and  Polynesia. 

A  multitude  of  English,  educated  at  the  univer- 


190  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

sities,  bred  into  their  society  with  manners,  ability 
and  the  gifts  of  fortune,  are  every  day  confronting 
the  peers  on  a  footing  of  equality,  and  outstripping 
them,  as  often,  in  the  race  of  honor  and  influence. 
That  cultivated  class  is  large  and  ever  enlarging. 
It  is  computed  that,  with  titles  and  without,  there 
are  seventy  thousand  of  these  people  coming  and 
going  in  London,  who  make  up  what  is  called  high 
society.  They  cannot  shut  their  eyes  to  the  fact 
that  an  untitled  nobility  possess  all  the  power  with- 
out the  inconveniences  that  belong  to  rank,  and  the 
rich  Englishman  goes  over  the  world  at  the  present 
day,  drawing  more  than  all  the  advantages  which 
the  strongest  of  his  kings  could  command. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

UNIVERSITIES. 

OF  British  universities,  Cambridge  has  the  most 
illustrious  names  on  its  list.  At  the  present  day 
too,  it  has  the  advantage  of  Oxford,  counting  in  its 
alumni  a  greater  number  of  distinguished  scholars. 
I  regret  that  I  had  but  a  single  day  wherein  to  see 
King's  College  Chapel,  the  beautiful  lawns  and  gar- 
dens of  the  colleges,  and  a  few  of  its  gownsmen. 

But  I  availed  myself  of  some  repeated  invitations 
to  Oxford,  where  I  had  introductions  to  Dr.  Dau- 
beny,  Professor  of  Botany,  and  to  the  Regius  Pro- 
fessor of  Divinity,  as  well  as  to  a  valued  friend,  a 
Fellow  of  Oriel,  and  went  thither  on  the  last  day 
of  March,  1848.  I  was  the  guest  of  my  friend  in 
Oriel,  was  housed  close  upon  that  college,  and  I 
lived  on  college  hospitalities. 

My  new  friends  showed  me  their  cloisters,  the 
Bodleian  Library,  the  Randolph  Gallery,  Merton 
Hall  and  the  rest.  I  saw  several  faithful,  high- 
minded  young  men,  some  of  them  in  the  mood  of 
making  sacrifices  for  peace  of  mind,  —  a  topic,  of 
course,  on  which  I  had  no  counsel  to  offer.  Their 


192  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

affectionate  and  gregarious  ways  reminded  me  at 
once  of  the  habits  of  our  Cambridge  men,  though  I 
imputed  to  these  English  an  advantage  in  their 
secure  and  polished  manners.  The  halls  are  rich 
with  oaken  wainscoting  and  ceiling.  The  pictures 
of  the  founders  hang  from  the  walls;  the  tables 
glitter  with  plate.  A  youth  came  forward  to  the 
upper  table  and  pronounced  the  ancient  form  of 
grace  before  meals,  which,  I  suppose,  has  been  in 
use  here  for  ages,  Benedictus  benedicat ;  bene- 
dicitur,  benedicatur. 

It  is  a  curious  proof  of  the  English  use  and 
wont,  or  of  their  good  nature,  that  these  young 
men  are  locked  up  every  night  at  nine  o'clock,  and 
the  porter  at  each  hall  is  required  to  give  the  name 
of  any  belated  student  who  is  admitted  after  that 
hour.  Still  more  descriptive  is  the  fact  that  out 
of  twelve  hundred  young  men,  comprising  the  most 
spirited  of  the  aristocracy,  a  duel  has  never  oc- 
curred. 

Oxford  is  old,  even  in  England,  and  conserva- 
tive. Its  foundations  date  from  Alfred  and  even 
from  Arthur,  if,  as  is  alleged,  the  Pheryllt  of 
the  Druids  had  a  seminary  here.  In  the  reign  of 
Edward  I.,  it  is  pretended,  here  were  thirty  thous- 
and students ;  and  nineteen  most  noble  foundations 
were  then  established.  Chaucer  found  it  as  firm 
as  if  it  had  always  stood  ;  and  it  is,  in  British  story, 


UNIVERSITIES.  193 

rich  with  great  names,  the  school  of  the  island 
and  the  link  of  England  to  the  learned  of  Europe. 
Hither  came  Erasmus,  with  delight,  in  1497.  Al- 
bericus  Gentilis,  in  1580,  was  relieved  and  main- 
tained by  the  university.  Albert  Alaskie,  a  noble 
Polonian,  Prince  of  Sirad,  who  visited  England  to 
admire  the  wisdom  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  was  enter- 
tained with  stage-plays  in  the  Refectory  of  Christ- 
church  in  1583.  Isaac  Casaubon,  coming  from 
Henri  Quatre  of  France  by  invitation  of  James  I., 
was  admitted  to  Christ's  College,  in  July,  1613.  I 
saw  the  Ashmolean  Museum,  whither  Elias  Ash- 
mole  in  1682  sent  twelve  cartloads  of  rarities. 
Here  indeed  was  the  Olympia  of  all  Antony  Wood's 
and  Aubrey's  games  and  heroes,  and  every  inch  of 
ground  has  its  lustre.  For  Wood's  Athence  Ox- 
onienses,  or  calendar  of  the  writers  of  Oxford  for 
two  hundred  years,  is  a  lively  record  of  English 
manners  and  merits,  and  as  much  a  national  mon- 
ument as  Purchas's  Pilgrims  or  Hansard's  Regis- 
ter. On  every  side,  Oxford  is  redolent  of  age  and 
authority.  Its  gates  shut  of  themselves  against 
modern  innovation.  It  is  still  governed  by  the 
statutes  of  Archbishop  Laud.  The  books  hi  Mer- 
ton  Library  are  still  chained  to  the  wall.  Here, 
on  August  27,  1660,  John  Milton's  Pro  Populo 
Anglicano  Defensio  and  Iconoclastes  were  commit- 
ted to  the  flames.  I  saw  the  school-court  or  quad- 

VOL.  V.  13 


194  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

rangle  where,  In  1683,  the  Convocation  caused  the 
Leviathan  of  Thomas  Hobbes  to  be  publicly  burnt. 
I  do  not  know  whether  this  learned  body  have  yet 
heard  of  the  Declaration  of  American  Indepen- 
dence, or  whether  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy  does 
not  still  hold  its  ground  against  the  novelties  of 
Copernicus. 

As  many  sons,  almost  so  many  benefactors.  It 
is  usual  for  a  nobleman,  or  indeed  for  almost  every 
wealthy  student,  on  quitting  college  to  leave  behind 
him  some  article  of  plate  ;  and  gifts  of  all  values, 
from  a  hall  or  a  fellowship  or  a  library,  down  to  a 
picture  or  a  spoon,  are  continually  accruing,  in  the 
course  of  a  century.  My  friend  Doctor  J.,  gave  me 
the  following  anecdote.  In  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence's 
collection  at  London  were  the  cartoons  of  Eaphael 
and  Michael  Angelo.  This  inestimable  prize  was 
offered  to  Oxford  University  for  seven  thousand 
pounds.  The  offer  was  accepted,  and  the  commit- 
tee charged  with  the  affair  had  collected  three 
thousand  pounds,  when,  among  other  friends,  they 
called  on  Lord  Eldoii.  Instead  of  a  hundred 
pounds,  he  surprised  them  by  putting  down  his 
name  for  three  thousand  pounds.  They  told  him 
they  should  now  very  easily  raise  the  remainder. 
"  No,"  he  said,  "  your  men  have  probably  already 
contributed  all  they  can  spare  ;  I  can  as  well  give 
the  rest : "  and  he  withdrew  his  cheque  for  three 


UNIVERSITIES.  195 

thousand,  and  wrote  four  thousand  pounds.     I  saw 
the  whole  collection  in  April,  1848. 

In  the  Bodleian  Library,  Dr.  Bandinel  showed 
me  the  manuscript  Plato,  of  the  date  of  A.  D.  896, 
brought  by  Dr.  Clarke  from  Egypt ;  a  manuscript 
Virgil  of  the  same  century ;  the  first  Bible  printed 
at  Mentz  (I  believe  in  1450)  ;  and  a  duplicate  of 
the  same,  which  had  been  deficient  in  about  twenty 
leaves  at  the  end.  But  one  day,  being  in  Venice, 
he  bought  a  room  full  of  books  and  manuscripts, — 
every  scrap  and  fragment,  —  for  four  thousand 
louis  d'ors,  and  had  the  doors  locked  and  sealed  by 
the  consul.  On  proceeding  afterwards  to  examine 
his  purchase,  he  found  the  twenty  deficient  pages 
of  his  Meutz  Bible,  in  perfect  order ;  brought  them 
to  Oxford  with  the  rest  of  his  purchase,  and  placed 
them  in  the  volume  ;  but  has  too  much  awe  for  the 
Providence  that  appears  in  bibliography  also,  to 
suffer  the  reunited  parts  to  be  re-bound.  The  old- 
est building  here  is  two  hundred  years  younger 
than  the  frail  manuscript  brought  by  Dr.  Clarke 
from  Egypt.  No  candle  or  fire  is  ever  lighted  in 
the  Bodleian.  Its  catalogue  is  the  standard  cata- 
logue on  the  desk  of  every  library  in  Oxford.  In 
each  several  college  they  underscore  in  red  ink  on 
this  catalogue  the  titles  of  books  contained  in  the 
library  of  that  college,  —  the  theory  being  that  the 
Bodleian  has  all  books.  This  rich  library  spent 


196  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

during  the  last  year  (1847),  for  the  purchase  of 
books,  £1,668. 

The  logical  English  train  a  scholar  as  they  train 
an  engineer.  Oxford  is  a  Greek  factory,  as  Wil- 
ton mills  weave  carpet  and  Sheffield  grinds  steel. 
They  know  the  use  of  a  tutor,  as  they  know  the 
use  of  a  horse  ;  and  they  draw  the  greatest  amount 
of  benefit  out  of  both.  The  reading  men  are  kept, 
by  hard  walking,  hard  riding  and  measured  eating 
and  drinking,  at  the  top  of  their  condition,  and 
two  days  before  the  examination,  do  no  work,  but 
lounge,  ride,  or  run,  to  be  fresh  on  the  college 
doomsday.  Seven  years'  residence  is  the  theoretic 
period  for  a  master's  degree.  In  point  of  fact,  it 
has  long  been  three  years'  residence,  and  four  years 
more  of  standing.  This  "three  years"  is  about 
twenty-one  months  in  all.1 

"  The  whole  expense,"  says  Professor  Sewel,  "  of 
ordinary  college  tuition  at  Oxford,  is  about  sixteen 
guineas  a  year."  But  this  plausible  statement  may 
deceive  a  reader  unacquainted  with  the  fact  that 
the  principal  teaching  relied  on  is  private  tuition. 
And  the  expenses  of  private  tuition  are  reckoned 
at  from  £50  to  £70  a  year,  or  $1,000  for  the  whole 
course  of  three  years  and  a  half.  At  Cambridge, 
$750  a  year  is  economical,  and  $1,500  not  extrava- 
gant.2 

1  Huber,  ii.  p.  304. 

2  Bristed,  Five  Years  at  an  English  University. 


UNIVERSITIES.  197 

The  number  of  students  and  of  residents,  the 
dignity  of  the  authorities,  the  value  of  the  founda- 
tions, the  history  and  the  architecture,  the  known 
sympathy  of  entire  Britain  in  what  is  done  there, 
justify  a  dedication  to  study  in  the  undergraduate 
such  as  cannot  easily  be  in  America,  where  his  col- 
lege is  half  suspected  by  the  Freshman  to  be  insig- 
nificant in  the  scale  beside  trade  and  politics.  Ox- 
ford is  a  little  aristocracy  in  itself,  numerous  and 
dignified  enough  to  rank  with  other  estates  in  the 
realm  ;  and  where  fame  and  secular  promotion  are 
to  be  had  for  study,  and  in  a  direction  which  has 
the  unanimous  respect  of  all  cultivated  nations. 

This  aristocracy,  of  course,  repairs  its  own  losses ; 
fills  places,  as  they  fall  vacant,  from  the  body  of 
students.  The  number  of  fellowships  at  Oxford  is 
540,  averaging  ,£200  a  year,  with  lodging  and  diet 
at  the  college.  If  a  young  American,  loving  learn- 
ing and  hindered  by  poverty,  were  offered  a  home, 
a  table,  the  walks  and  the  library  in  one  of  these 
academical  palaces,  and  a  thousand  dollars  a  year, 
as  long  as  he  chose  to  remain  a  bachelor,  he  would 
dance  for  joy.  Yet  these  young  men  thus  happily 
placed,  and  paid  to  read,  are  impatient  of  their  few 
checks,  and  many  of  them  preparing  to  resign  their 
fellowships.  They  shuddered  at  the  prospect  of 
dying  a  Fellow,  and  they  pointed  out  to  me  a  para- 
lytic old  man,  who  was  assisted  into  the  hall.  As 


198  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  number  of  undergraduates  at  Oxford  is  only 
about  1,200  or  1,300,  and  many  of  these  are  never 
competitors,  the  chance  of  a  fellowship  is  very 
great.  The  income  of  the  nineteen  colleges  is  con- 
jectured at  £150,000  a  year. 

The  effect  of  this  drill  is  the  radical  knowledge 
of  Greek  and  Latin  and  of  mathematics,  and  the 
solidity  and  taste  of  English  criticism.  Whatever 
luck  there  may  be  in  this  or  that  award,  an  Eton 
captain  can  write  Latin  longs  and  shorts,  can  turn 
the  Court-Guide  into  hexameters,  and  it  is  certain 
that  a  Senior  Classic  can  quote  correctly  from  the 
Corpus  Poetarum  and  is  critically  learned  in  all 
the  humanities.  Greek  erudition  exists  on  the  Isis 
and  Cam,  whether  the  Maud  man  or  the  Brasenose 
man  be  properly  ranked  or  not ;  the  atmosphere  is 
loaded  with  Greek  learning ;  the  whole  river  has 
reached  a  certain  height,  and  kills  all  that  growth 
of  weeds  which  this  Castalian  water  kills.  The 
English  nature  takes  culture  kindly.  So  Milton 
thought.  It  refines  the  Norseman.  Access  to  the 
Greek  mind  lifts  his  standard  of  taste.  He  has 
enough  to  think  of,  and,  unless  of  an  impulsive  na- 
ture, is  indisposed  from  writing  or  speaking,  by  the 
fulness  of  his  mind  and  the  new  severity  of  his 
taste.  The  great  silent  crowd  of  thorough-bred 
Grecians  always  known  to  be  around  him,  the  Eng- 
lish writer  cannot  ignore.  They  prune  his  orationa 


UNIVERSITIES.  199 

and  point  his  pen.  Hence  the  style  and  tone  of 
English  journalism.  The  men  have  learned  accu- 
racy and  comprehension,  logic,  and  pace,  or  speed 
of  working.  They  have  bottom,  endurance,  wind. 
When  born  with  good  constitutions,  they  make 
those  eupeptic  studying-mills,  the  cast-iron  men,  the 
dura  ilia,  whose  powers  of  performance  compare 
with  ours  as  the  steam-hammer  with  the  music- 
box  ;  —  Cokes,  Mansfields,  Seldens  and  Bentleys, 
and  when  it  happens  that  a  superior  brain  puts  a 
rider  on  this  admirable  horse,  we  obtain  those  mas- 
ters of  the  world  who  combine  the  highest  energy 
in  affairs  with  a  supreme  culture. 

It  is  contended  by  those  who  have  been  bred  at 
Eton,  Harrow,  Rugby  and  Westminster,  that  the 
public  sentiment  within  each  of  those  schools  is 
high-toned  and  manly ;  that,  in  their  playgrounds, 
courage  is  universally  admired,  meanness  despised, 
manly  feelings  and  generous  conduct  are  encour- 
aged :  that  an  unwritten  code  of  honor  deals  to  the 
spoiled  child  of  rank  and  to  the  child  of  upstart 
wealth,  an  even-handed  justice,  purges  their  non- 
sense out  of  both  and  does  all  that  can  be  done  to 
make  them  gentlemen. 

Again,  at  the  universities,  it  is  urged  that  all 
goes  to  form  what  England  values  as  the  flower 
of  its  national  life,  —  a  well-educated  gentleman. 
The  German  Huber,  in  describing  to  his  country- 


200  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

men  the  attributes  of  an  English  gentleman,  frank- 
ly admits  that  "  in  Germany,  we  have  nothing  of 
the  kind.  A  gentleman  must  possess  a  political 
character,  an  independent  and  public  position,  or 
at  least  the  right  of  assuming  it.  He  must  have 
average  opulence,  either  of  his  own,  or  in  his  fam- 
ily. He  should  also  have  bodily  activity  and 
strength,  unattainable  by  our  sedentary  life  in  pub- 
lic offices.  The  race  of  English  gentlemen  pre- 
sents an  appearance  of  manly  vigor  and  form  not* 
elsewhere  to  be  found  among  an  equal  number  of 
persons.  No  other  nation  produces  the  stock.  And 
in  England,  it  has  deteriorated.  The  university  is 
a  decided  presumption  in  any  man's  favor.  And 
so  eminent  are  the  members  that  a  glance  at  the 
calendars  will  show  that  in  all  the  world  one  can- 
not be  in  better  company  than  on  the  books  of  one 
of  the  larger  Oxford  or  Cambridge  colleges."  l 

These  seminaries  are  finishing  schools  for  the 
upper  classes,  and  not  for  the  poor.  The  useful 
is  exploded.  The  definition  of  a  public  school  is 
"  a  school  which  excludes  all  that  could  fit  a  man 
for  standing  behind  a  counter."  2 

No  doubt,  the  foundations  have  been  perverted. 

1  Huber,   History  of  the  English   Universities,   Newman's 
Translation. 

2  See  Bristed,  Five  Years  in  an  English  University.     New 
York,  1852. 


UNIVERSITIES.  201 

Oxford,  which  equals  in  wealth  several  of  the 
smaller  European  states,  shuts  up  the  lectureships 
which  were  made  "  public  for  all  men  thereunto 
to  have  concourse ; "  mis-spends  the  revenues  be- 
stowed for  such  youths  "  as  should  be  most  meet 
for  towardness,  poverty  and  painfulness ; "  there 
is  gross  favoritism ;  many  chairs  and  many  fellow- 
ships are  made  beds  of  ease  ;  and  it  is  likely  that 
the  university  will  know  how  to  resist  and  make 
inoperative  the  terrors  of  parliamentary  inquiry  ; 
no  doubt  their  learning  is  grown  obsolete ;  —  but 
Oxford  also  has  its  merits,  and  I  found  here  also 
proof  of  the  national  fidelity  and  thoroughness. 
Such  knowledge  as  they  prize  they  possess  and  im- 
part. Whether  in  course  or  by  indirection,  whether 
by  a  cramming  tutor  or  by  examiners  with  prizes 
and  foundation  scholarships,  education,  according 
to  the  English  notion  of  it,  is  arrived  at.  I  looked 
over  the  Examination  Papers  of  the  year  1848,  for 
the  various  scholarships  and  fellowships,  the  Lusby, 
the  Hertford,  the  Dean-Ireland  and  the  University 
(copies  of  which  were  kindly  given  me  by  a  Greek 
professor),  containing  the  tasks  which  many  com- 
petitors had  victoriously  performed,  and  I  believed 
they  would  prove  too  severe  tests  for  the  candi- 
dates for  a  Bachelor's  degree  in  Yale  or  Harvard. 
And  in  general,  here  was  proof  of  a  more  search- 
ing study  in  the  appointed  directions,  and  the 


202  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

knowledge  pretended  to  be  conveyed  was  con- 
veyed. Oxford  sends  out  yearly  twenty  or  thirty 
very  able  men  and  three  or  four  hundred  well-edu- 
cated men. 

The  diet  and  rough  exercise  secure  a  certain 
amount  of  old  Norse  power.  A  fop  will  fight,  and 
in  exigent  circumstances  will  play  the  manly  part. 
In  seeing  these  youths  I  believed  I  saw  already  an 
advantage  in  vigor  and  color  and  general  habit, 
over  their  contemporaries  in  the  American  col- 
leges. No  doubt  much  of  the  power  and  brilliancy 
of  the  reading-men  is  merely  constitutional  or  hy- 
gienic. With  a  hardier  habit  and  resolute  gym- 
nastics, with  five  miles  more  walking,  or  five  ounces 
less  eating,  or  with  a  saddle  and  gallop  of  twenty 
miles  a  day,  with  skating  and  rowing-matches,  the 
American  would  arrive  at  as  robust  exegesis  and 
cheery  and  hilarious  tone.  I  should  readily  con- 
cede these  advantages,  which  it  would  be  easy  to 
acquire,  if  I  did  not  find  also  that  they  read  better 
than  we,  and  write  better. 

English  wealth  falling  on  their  school  and  uni- 
versity training,  makes  a  systematic  reading  of  the 
best  authors,  and  to  the  end  of  a  knowledge  how 
the  things. whereof  they  treat  really  stand  :  whilst 
pamphleteer  or  journalist,  reading  for  an  argument 
for  a  party,  or  reading  to  write,  or  at  all  events  for 
some  by-end  imposed  on  them,  must  read  meanly 


UNIVERSITIES.  203 

and  fragmentarily.  Charles  I.  said  that  he  under- 
stood English  law  as  well  as  a  gentleman  ought  to 
understand  it. 

Then  they  have  access  to  books  ;  the  rich  libra- 
ries collected  at  every  one  of  many  thousands  of 
houses,  give  an  advantage  not  to  be  attained  by  a 
youth  in  this  country,  when  one  thinks  how  much 
more  and  better  may  be  learned  by  a  scholar  who, 
immediately  on  hearing  of  a  book,  can  consult  it, 
than  by  one  who  is  on  the  quest,  for  years,  and 
reads  inferior  books  because  he  cannot  find  the 
best. 

Again,  the  great  number  of  cultivated  men  keep 
each  other  up  to  a  high  standard.  The  habit  of 
meeting  well-read  and  knowing  men  teaches  the 
art  of  omission  and  selection. 

Universities  are  of  course  hostile  to  geniuses, 
which  seeing  and  using  ways  of  their  own,  discredit 
the  routine :  as  churches  and  monasteries  persecute 
youthful  saints.  Yet  we  all  send  our  sons  to  col- 
lege, and  though  he  be  a  genius,  the  youth  must 
take  his  chance.  The  university  must  be  retrospec- 
tive. The  gale  that  gives  direction  to  the  vanes  on 
all  its  towers  blows  out  of  antiquity.  Oxford  is 
a  library,  and  the  professors  must  be  librarians. 
And  I  should  as  soon  think  of  quarrelling  with 
the  janitor  for  not  magnifying  his  office  by  hostile 
sallies  into  the  street,  like  the  Governor  of  Kertch. 


204  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

or  Kinburn,  as  of  quarrelling  with  the  professors 
for  not  admiring  the  young  neologists  who  pluck 
the  beards  of  Euclid  and  Aristotle,  or  for  not 
attempting  themselves  to  fill  their  vacant  shelves 
as  original  writers. 

It  is  easy  to  carp  at  colleges,  and  the  college,  if 
we  will  wait  for  it,  will  have  its  own  turn.  Genius 
exists  there  also,  but  will  not  answer  a  call  of  a 
committee  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  is  rare, 
precarious,  eccentric  and  darkling.  England  is 
the  land  of  mixture  and  surprise,  and  when  you 
have  settled  it  that  the  universities  are  moribund, 
out  comes  a  poetic  influence  from  the  heart  of 
Oxford,  to  mould  the  opinions  of  cities,  to  build 
their  houses  as  simply  as  birds  their  nests,  to  give 
veracity  to  art  and  charm  mankind,  as  an  appeal  to 
moral  order  always  must.  But  besides  this  restor- 
ative genius,  the  best  poetry  of  England  of  this 
age,  in  the  old  forms,  comes  from  two  graduates 
of  Cambridge. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

RELIGION. 

No  people  at  the  present  day  can  be  explained 
by  their  national  religion.  They  do  not  feel  re- 
sponsible for  it;  it  lies  far  outside  of  them.  Their 
loyalty  to  truth  and  their  labor  and  expenditure 
rest  on  real  foundations,  and  not  on  a  national 
church.  And  English  life,  it  is  evident,  does  not 
grow  out  of  the  Athanasian  creed,  or  the  Articles, 
or  the  Eucharist.  It  is  with  religion  as  with  mar- 
riage. A  youth  marries  in  haste ;  afterwards,  when 
his  mind  is  opened  to  the  reason  of  the  conduct  of 
life,  he  is  asked  what  he  thinks  of  the  institution 
of  marriage  and  of  the  right  relations  of  the  sexes  ? 
'  I  should  have  much  to  say,'  he  might  reply,  '  if 
the  question  were  open,  but  I  have  a  wife  and 
children,  and  all  question  is  closed  for  me.'  In 
the  barbarous  days  of  a  nation,  some  cultus  is 
formed  or  imported ;  altars  are  built,  tithes  are 
paid,  priests  ordained.  The  education  and  expen- 
diture of  the  country  take  that  direction,  and  when 
wealth,  refinement,  great  men,  and  ties  to  the  world 
supervene,  its  prudent  men  say,  Why  fight  against 


206  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Fate,  or  lift  these  absurdities  which  are  now  moun- 
tainous ?  Better  find  some  niche  or  crevice  in  this 
mountain  of  stone  which  religious  ages  have  quar- 
ried and  carved,  wherein  to  bestow  yourself,  than 
attempt  any  thing  ridiculously  and  dangerously 
above  your  strength,  like  removing  it. 

In  seeing  old  castles  and  cathedrals,  I  sometimes 
say,  as  to-day  in  front  of  Dundee  Church  tower, 
which  is  eight  hundred  years  old,  '  This  was  built 
by  another  and  a  better  race  than  any  that  now 
look  on  it.'  And  plainly  there  has  been  great 
power  of  sentiment  at  work  in  this  island,  of  which 
these  buildings  are  the  proofs ;  as  volcanic  basalts 
show  the  work  of  fire  which  has  been  extinguished 
for  ages.  England  felt  the  full  heat  of  the  Chris- 
tianity which  fermented  Europe,  and  drew,  like  the 
chemistry  of  fire,  a  firm  line  between  barbarism  and 
culture.  The  power  of  the  religious  sentiment  put 
an  end  to  human  sacrifices,  checked  appetite,  in- 
spired the  crusades,  inspired  resistance  to  tyrants, 
inspired  self-respect,  set  bounds  to  serfdom  and 
slavery,  founded  liberty,  created  the  religious  ar- 
chitecture, —  York,  Newstead,  Westminster,  Foun- 
tains Abbey,  Ripon,  Beverley  and  Dundee,  —  works 
to  which  the  key  is  lost,  with  the  sentiment  which 
created  them ;  inspired  the  English  Bible,  the  lit- 
urgy, the  monkish  histories,  the  chronicle  of  Rich- 
ard of  Devizes.  The  priest  translated  the  Vulgate, 


RELIGION.  207 

and  translated  the  sanctities  of  old  hagiology  into 
English  virtues  on  English  ground.  It  was  a  cer- 
tain affirmative  or  aggressive  state  of  the  Cauca- 
sian races.  Man  awoke  refreshed  by  the  sleep  of 
ages.  The  violence  of  the  northern  savages  exas- 
perated Christianity  into  power.  It  lived  by  the 
love  of  the  people.  Bishop  Wilfrid  manumitted 
two  hundred  and  fifty  serfs,  whom  he  found  at- 
tached to  the  soil.  The  clergy  obtained  respite 
from  labor  for  the  boor  on  the  Sabbath  and  on 
church  festivals.  "  The  lord  who  compelled  his 
boor  to  labor  between  sunset  on  Saturday  and  sun- 
set on  Sunday,  forfeited  him  altogether."  The 
priest  came  out  of  the  people  and  sympathized 
with  his  class.  The  church  was  the  mediator, 
check  and  democratic  principle,  in  Europe.  Lati- 
mer,  Wicliffe,  Arundel,  Cobham,  Antony  Parsons, 
Sir  Harry  Vane,  George  Fox,  Penn,  Bunyan  are 
the  democrats,  as  well  as  the  saints  of  their  times. 
The  Catholic  church,  thrown  on  this  toiling,  serious 
people,  has  made  in  fourteen  centuries  a  massive 
system,  close  fitted  to  the  manners  and  genius  of 
the  country,  at  once  domestical  and  stately.  In 
the  long  time,  it  has  blended  with  every  thing  in 
heaven  above  and  the  earth  beneath.  It  moves 
through  a  zodiac  of  feasts  and  fasts,  names  every 
day  of  the  year,  every  town  and  market  and  head- 
land and  monument,  and  has  coupled  itself  with 


208  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  almanac,  that  no  court  can  be  held,  no  field 
ploughed,  no  horse  shod,  without  some  leave  from 
the  church.  All  maxims  of  prudence  or  shop  or 
farm  are  fixed  and  dated  by  the  church.  Hence 
its  strength  in  the  agricultural  districts.  The  dis- 
tribution of  land  into  parishes  enforces  a  church 
sanction  to  every  civil  privilege ;  and  the  gradation 
of  the  clergy,  —  prelates  for  the  rich  and  curates 
for  the  poor,  —  with  the  fact  that  a  classical  educa- 
tion has  been  secured  to  the  clergyman,  makes  them 
"  the  link  which  unites  the  sequestered  peasantry 
with  the  intellectual  advancement  of  the  age."  l 

The  English  church  has  many  certificates  to  show 
of  humble  effective  service  in  humanizing  the  peo- 
ple, in  cheering  and  refining  men,  feeding,  healing 
and  educating.  It  has  the  seal  of  martyrs  and 
confessors ;  the  noblest  books ;  a  sublime  architec- 
ture ;  a  ritual  marked  by  the  same  secular  merits, 
nothing  cheap  or  purchasable. 

From  this  slow-grown  church  important  reactions 
proceed ;  much  for  culture,  much  for  giving  a  di- 
rection to  the  nation's  affection  and  will  to-day. 
The  carved  and  pictured  chapel,  —  its  entire  sur- 
face animated  with  image  and  emblem,  —  made  the 
parish-church  a  sort  of  book  and  Bible  to  the  peo- 
ple's eye. 

Then,  when  the  Saxon  instinct  had  secured  a 
1  Wordsworth. 


RELIGION.  209 

service  in  the  vernacular  tongue,  it  was  the  tutor 
and  university  of  the  people.  In  York  minster,  on 
the  day  of  the  enthronization  of  the  new  arch- 
bishop, I  heard  the  service  of  evening  prayer  read 
and  chanted  in  the  choir.  It  was  strange  to  hear 
the  pretty  pastoral  of  the  betrothal  of  Eebecca  and 
Isaac,  in  the  morning  of  the  world,  read  with  cir- 
cumstantiality in  York  minster,  on  the  13th  Janu- 
ary, 1848,  to  the  decorous  English  audience,  just 
fresh  from  the  Tjmes  newspaper  and  their  wine, 
and  listening  with  all  the  devotion  of  national  pride. 
That  was  binding  old  and  new  to  some  purpose. 
The  reverence  for  the  Scriptures  is  an  element  of 
civilization,  for  thus  has  the  history  of  the  world 
been  preserved  and  is  preserved.  Here  in  England 
every  day  a  chapter  of  Genesis,  and  a  leader  in  the 
Times. 

Another  part  of  the  same  service  on  this  occa- 
sion was  not  insignificant.  Handel's  coronation 
anthem,  God  save  the  King,  was  played  by  Dr. 
Camidge  on  the  organ,  with  sublime  effect.  The 
minster  and  the  music  were  made  for  each  other. 
It  was  a  hint  of  the  part  the  church  plays  as  a  po- 
litical engine.  From  his  infancy,  every  English- 
man is  accustomed  to  hear  daily  prayers  for  the 
queen,  for  the  royal  family  and  the  Parliament,  by 
name  ;  and  this  lifelong  consecration  cannot  be  with- 
out influence  on  his  opinions. 

VOL.  v.  14 


210  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

The  universities  also  are  parcel  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical system,  and  their  first  design  is  to  form  the 
clergy.  Thus  the  clergy  for  a  thousand  years  have 
been  the  scholars  of  the  nation. 

The  national  temperament  deeply  enjoys  the  un- 
broken order  and  tradition  of  its  church ;  the  lit- 
urgy, ceremony,  architecture  ;  the  sober  grace,  the 
good  company,  the  connection  with  the  throne  and 
with  history,  which  adorn  it.  %And  whilst  it  en- 
dears itself  thus  to  men  of  more  taste  than  activity, 
the  stability  of  the  English  nation  is  passionately 
enlisted  to  its  support,  from  its  inextricable  connec- 
tion with  the  cause  of  public  order,  with  politics 
and  with  the  funds. 

Good  churches  are  not  built  by  bad  men ;  at 
least  there  must  be  probity  and  enthusiasm  some- 
where in  the  society.  These  minsters  were  neither 
built  nor  filled  by  atheists.  No  church  has  had 
more  learned,  industrious  or  devoted  men ;  plenty 
of  "clerks  and  bishops,  who,  out  of  their  gowns, 
would  turn  their  backs  on  no  man."  *  Their  ar- 
chitecture still  glows  with  faith  in  immortality. 
Heats  and  genial  periods  arrive  in  history,  or,  shall 
we  say,  plenitudes  of  Divine  Presence,  by  which 
high  tides  are  caused  in  the  human  spirit,  and  great 
virtues  and  talents  appear,  as  in  the  eleventh, 

l  Fuller. 


RELIGION.  211 

twelfth,  thirteenth,  and  again  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  when  the  nation  was  full  of 
genius  and  piety. 

But  the  age  of  the  Wicliffes,  Cobhams,  A  run- 
dels,  Beckets  ;  of  the  Latimers,  Mores,  Cranraers ; 
of  the  Taylors,  Leightons,  Herberts  ;  of  the  Sher- 
loeks  and  Butlers,  is  gone.  Silent  revolutions  in 
opinion  have  made  it  impossible  that  men  like  these 
should  return,  or  find  a  place  in  their  once  sacred 
stalls.  The  spirit  .that  dwelt  in  this  church  has 
glided  away  to  animate  other  activities,  and  they 
who  come  to  the  old  shrines  find  apes  and  players 
rustling  the  old  garments. 

The  religion  of  England  is  part  of  good-breeding. 
When  you  see  on  the  continent  the  well-dressed 
Englishman  come  into  his  ambassador's  chapel 
and  put  his  face  for  silent  prayer  into  his  smooth- 
brushed  hat,  you  cannot  help  feeling  how  much 
national  pride  prays  with  him,  and  the  religion  of  a 
gentleman.  So  far  is  he  from  attaching  any  mean- 
ing to  the  words,  that  he  believes  himself  to  have 
done  almost  the  generous  thing,  and  that  it  is  very 
condescending  in  him  to  pray  to  God.  A  great 
duke  said  on  the  occasion  of  a  victory,  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  that  he  thought  the  Almighty  God  had 
not  been  well  used  by  them,  and  that  it  would  be- 
come their  magnanimity,  after  so  great  successes, 
to  take  order  that  a  proper  acknowledgment  be 


212  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

made.  It  is  the  church  of  the  gentry,  but  it  is  not 
the  church  of  the  poor.  The  operatives  do  not  own 
it,  and  gentlemen  lately  testified  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  in  their  lives  they  never  saw  a  poor 
man  in  a  ragged  coat  inside  a  church. 

The  torpidity  on  the  side  of  religion  of  the  vigor- 
ous English  understanding  shows  how  much  wit 
and  folly  can  agree  in  one  brain.  Their  religion  is 
a  quotation ;  their  church  is  a  doll ;  and  any  exam- 
ination is  interdicted  with  screams  of  terror.  In 
good  company  you  expect  them  to  laugh  at  the 
fanaticism  of  the  vulgar ;  but  they  do  not  ;  they 
are  the  vulgar. 

The  English,  in  common  perhaps  with  Christen- 
dom in  the  nineteenth  century,  do  not  respect 
power,  but  only  performance  ;  value  ideas  only  for 
an  economic  result.  Wellington  esteems  a  saint 
only  as  far  as  he  can  be  an  army  chaplain :  "  Mr. 
Briscoll,  by  his  admirable  conduct  and  good  sense, 
got  the  better  of  Methodism,  which  had  appeared 
among  the  soldiers  and  once  among  the  officers." 
They  value  a  philosopher  as  they  value  an  apothe- 
cary who  brings  bark  or  a  drench  ;  and  inspiration 
is  only  some  blowpipe,  or  a  finer  mechanical  aid. 

I  suspect  that  there  is  in  an  Englishman's  brain  a 
valve  that  can  be  closed  at  pleasure,  as  an  engineer 
shuts  off  steam.  The  most  sensible  and  well-in- 
formed men  possess  the  power  of  thinking  just  so 


RELIGION.  213 

far  as  the  bishop  in  religious  matters,  and  as  the 
chancellor  of  the  exchequer  in  politics.  They  talk 
with  courage  and  logic,  and  show  you  magnificent 
results,  but  the  same  men  who  have  brought  free 
trade  or  geology  to  their  present  standing,  look 
grave  and  lofty  and  shut  down  their  valve  as  soon 
as  the  conversation  approaches  the  English  church. 
After  that,  you  talk  with  a  box-turtle. 

The  action  of  the  university,  both  in  what  is 
taught  and  in  the  spirit  of  the  place,  is  directed 
more  on  producing  an  English  gentleman,  than  a 
saint  or  a  psychologist.  It  ripens  a  bishop,  and 
extrudes  a  philosopher.  I  do  not  know  that  there 
is  more  cabalism  in  the  Anglican  than  in  other 
churches,  but  the  Anglican  clergy  are  identified 
with  the  aristocracy.  They  say  here,  that  if  you 
talk  with  a  clergyman,  you  are  sure  to  find  him 
well-bred,  informed  and  candid  :  he  entertains  your 
thought  or  your  project  with  sympathy  and  praise. 
But  if  a  second  clergyman  come  in,  the  sympathy 
is  at  an  end :  two  together  are  inaccessible  to  your 
thought,  and  whenever  it  comes  to  action,  the 
clergyman  invariably  sides  with  his  church. 

The  Anglican  church  is  marked  by  the  grace 
and  good  sense  of  its  forms,  by  the  manly  grace  of 
its  clergy.  The  gospel  it  preaches  is  '  By  taste  are 
ye  saved.'  It  keeps  the  old  structures  in  repair, 
spends  a  world  of  money  in  music  and  building, 


214  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

and  in  buying  Pugin  and  architectural  literature. 
It  has  a  general  good  name  for  amenity  and  mild- 
ness. It  is  not  in  ordinary  a  persecuting  church  ; 
it  is  not  inquisitorial,  not  even  inquisitive ;  is  per- 
fectly well-bred,  and  can  shut  its  eyes  on  all  proper 
occasions.  If  you  let  it  alone,  it  will  let  you  alone. 
But  its  instinct  is  hostile  to  all  change  in  politics, 
literature,  or  social  arts.  The  church  has  not  been 
the  founder  of  the  London  University,  of  the  Me- 
chanics' Institutes,  of  the  Free  School,  of  whatever 
aims  at  diffusion  of  knowledge.  The  Platonists  of 
Oxford  are  as  bitter  against  this  heresy,  as  Thomas 
Taylor. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Old  Testament  is  the  religion 
of  England.  The  first  leaf  of  the  New  Testament 
it  does  not  open.  It  believes  in  a  Providence 
which  does  not  treat  with  levity  a  pound  sterling. 
They  are  neither  transcendentalists  nor  Christians. 
They  put  up  no  Socratic  prayer,  much  less  any 
saintly  prayer  for  the  queen's  mind ;  ask  neither 
for  light  nor  right,  but  say  bluntly,  "  Grant  her  in 
health  and  wealth  long  to  live."  And  one  traces 
this  Jewish  prayer  in  all  English  private  history, 
from  the  prayers  of  King  Richard,  in  Richard  of 
Devizes'  Chronicle,  to  those  in  the  diaries  of  Sir 
Samuel  Romilly  and  of  Haydon  the  painter. 
"Abroad  with  my  wife,"  writes  Pepys  piously, 
"  the  first  time  that  ever  I  rode  in  my  own  coach  j 


RELIGION.  215 

which  do  make  my  heart  rejoice  and  praise  God, 
and  pray  him  to  bless  it  to  me,  and  continue  it." 
The  bill  for  the  naturalization  of  the  Jews  (in 
1753)  was  resisted  by  petitions  from  all  parts  of 
the  kingdom,  and  by  petition  from  the  city  of  Lon- 
don, reprobating  this  bill,  as  "  tending  extremely 
to  the  dishonor  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  ex- 
tremely injurious  to  the  interests  and  commerce  of 
the  kingdom  in  general,  and  of  the  city  of  London 
in  particular." 

But  they  have  not  been  able  to  congeal  humanity 
by  act  of  Parliament.  "  The  heavens  journey  still 
and  sojourn  not,"  and  arts,  wars,  discoveries  and 
opinion  go  onward  at  their  own  pace.  The  new 
age  has  new  desires,  new  enemies,  new  trades,  new 
charities,  and  reads  the  Scriptures  with  new  eyes. 
The  chatter  of  French  politics,  the  steam-whistle, 
the  hum  of  the  mill  and  the  noise  of  embarking 
emigrants  had  quite  put  most  of  the  old  legends 
out  of  mind ;  so  that  when  you  came  to  read  the 
liturgy  to  a  modern  congregation,  it  was  almost  ab- 
surd in  its  unfitness,  and  suggested  a  masquerade 
of  old  costumes. 

No  chemist  has  prospered  in  the  attempt  to 
crystallize  a  religion.  It  is  endogenous,  like  the 
.skin  and  other  vital  organs.  A  new  statement 
every  day.  The  prophet  and  apostle  knew  this, 
and  the  nonconformist  confutes  the  conformists,  by 


216  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

quoting  the  texts  they  must  allow.  It  is  the  con- 
dition of  a  religion  to  require  religion  for  its  ex- 
positor. Prophet  and  apostle  can  only  be  rightly 
understood  by  prophet  and  apostle.  The  states- 
man knows  that  the  religious  element  will  not  fail, 
any  more  than  the  supply  of  fibrine  and  chyle ; 
but  it  is  in  its  nature  constructive,  and  will  organ- 
ize such  a  church  as  it  wants.  The  wise  legislator 
will  spend  on  temples,  schools,  libraries,  colleges, 
but  will  shun  the  enriching  of  priests.  If  in  any 
manner  he  can  leave  the  election  and  paying  of 
the  priest  to  the  people,  he  will  do  well.  Like 
the  Quakers,  he  may  resist  the  separation  of  a 
class  of  priests,  and  create  opportunity  and  expec- 
tation in  the  society  to  run  to  meet  natural  endow- 
ment in  this  kind.  But  when  wealth  accrues  to 
a  chaplaincy,  a  bishopric,  or  rectorship,  it  requires 
moneyed  men  for  its  stewards,  who  will  give  it 
another  direction  than  to  the  mystics  of  their  day. 
Of  course,  money  will  do  after  its  kind,  and  will 
steadily  work  to  unspiritualize  and  unchurch  the 
people  to  whom  it  was  bequeathed.  The  class 
certain  to  be  excluded  from  all  preferment  are 'the 
religious, —  and  driven  to  other  churches  ;  which 
is  nature's  vis  medicatrix. 

The  curates  are  ill  paid,  and  the  prelates  are 
overpaid.  This  abuse  draws  into  the  church  the 
children  of  the  nobility  and  other  unfit  persons 


RELIGION.  217 

who  have  a  taste  for  expense.  Thus  a  bishop  is 
only  a  surpliced  merchant.  Through  his  lawn  I 
can  see  the  bright  buttons  of  the  shopman's  coat 
glitter.  A  wealth  like  that  of  Durham  makes  al- 
most a  premium  on  felony.  Brougham,  in  a  speech 
in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  Irish  elective 
franchise,  said,  "How  will  the  reverend  bishops 
of  the  other  house  be  able  to  express  their  due  ab- 
horrence of  the  crime  of  perjury,  who  solemnly 
declare  in  the  presence  of  God  that  when  they 
are  called  upon  to  accept  a  living,  perhaps  of 
£4,000  a  year,  at  that  very  instant  they  are  moved 
by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  accept  the  office  and  admin- 
istration thereof,  and  for  no  other  reason  what- 
ever ? "  The  modes  of  initiation  are  more  dam- 
aging than  custom-house  oaths.  The  Bishop  is 
elected  by  the  Dean  and  Prebends  of  the  cathedral. 
The  queen  sends  these  gentlemen  a  cong£  d*6lire, 
or  leave  to  elect ;  but  also  sends  them  the  name 
of  the  person  whom  they  are  to  elect.  They  go 
into  the  cathedral,  chant  and  pray  and  beseech  the 
Holy  Ghost  to  assist  them  in  their  choice;  and, 
after  these  invocations,  invariably  find  that  the 
dictates  of  the  Holy  Ghost  agree  with  the  recom- 
mendations of  the  Queen. 

But  you  must  pay  for  conformity.  All  goes 
well  as  long  as  you  run  with  conformists.  But 
you,  who  are  an  honest  man  in  other  particulars, 


218  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

know  that  there  is  alive  somewhere  a  man  whose 
honesty  reaches  to  this  point  also  that  he  shall  not 
kneel  to  false  gods,  andVm  the  day  when  you  meet 
him,  you  sink  into  the  c\ass  of  counterfeits.  Be- 
sides, this  succumbing  has  grave  penalties.  If  you 
take  in  a  lie,  you  must  take  in  all  that  belongs  to 
it.  England  accepts  this  ornamented  national 
church,  and  it  glazes  the  eyes,  bloats  the  flesh,  gives 
the  voice  a  stertorous  clang,  and  clouds  the  under- 
standing of  the  receivers. 

The  English  church,  undermined  by  German 
criticism,  had  nothing  left  but  tradition ;  and  was 
led  logically  back  to  Romanism.  But  that  was  an 
element  which  only  hot  heads  could  breathe :  in 
view  of  the  educated  class,  generally,  it  was  not  a 
fact  to  front  the  sun ;  and  the  alienation  of  such 
men  from  the  church  became  complete. 

Nature,  to  be  sure,  had  her  remedy.  Religious 
persons  are  driven  out  of  the  Established  Church 
into  sects,  which  instantly  rise  to  credit  and  hold 
the  Establishment  in  check.  Nature  has  sharper 
remedies,  also.  The  English,  abhorring  change  in 
all  things,  abhorring  it  most  in  matters  of  religion, 
cling  to  the  last  rag  of  form,  and  are  dreadfully 
given  to  cant.  The  English  (and  I  wish  it  were 
confined  to  them,  but  't  is  a  taint  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood  in  both  hemispheres),  —  the  English 
and  the  Americans  cant  beyond  all  other  nations. 


RELIGION.  219 

The  French  relinquish  all  that  industry  to  them. 
What  is  so  odious  as  the  polite  bows  to  God,  in 
our  books  and  newspapers  ?  The  popular  press  is 
flagitious  in  the  exact  measure  of  its  sanctimony, 
and  the  religion  of  the  day  is  a  theatrical  Sinai, 
where  the  thunders  are  supplied  by  the  property- 
man.  The  fanaticism  and  hypocrisy  create  satire. 
Punch  finds  an  inexhaustible  material.  Dickens 
writes  novels  on  Exeter-Hall  humanity.  Thack- 
eray exposes  the  heartless  high  life.  Nature  re- 
venges herself  more  summarily  by  the  heathenism 
of  the  lower  classes.  Lord  Shaftesbury  calls  the 
poor  thieves  together  and  reads  sermons  to  them, 
and  they  call  it  '  gas.'  George  Borrow  summons 
the  Gypsies  to  hear  his  discourse  on  the  Hebrews 
in  Egypt,  and  reads  to  them  the  Apostles'  Creed 
in  Romany.  "When  I  had  concluded,"  he  says, 
"I  looked  around  me.  The  features  of  the  as- 
sembly were  twisted,  and  the  eyes  of  all  turned 
upon  me  with  a  frightful  squint :  not  an  individual 
present  but  squinted ;  the  genteel  Pepa,  the  good- 
humored  Chicharona,  the  Cosdami,  all  squinted ; 
the  Gypsy  jockey  squinted  worst  of  all." 

The  church  at  this  moment  is  much  to  be  pitied. 
She  has  nothing  left  but  possession.  If  a  bishop 
meets  an  intelligent  gentleman  and  reads  fatal  in- 
terrogations in  his  eyes,  he  has  no  resource  but  to 
take  wine  with  him.  False  position  introduces 


220  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

cant,  perjury,  simony  and  ever  a  lower  class  of 
mind  and  character  into  the  clergy:  and,  when 
the  hierarchy  is  afraid  of  science  and  education, 
afraid  of  piety,  afraid  of  tradition  and  afraid  of 
theology,  there  is  nothing  left  but  to  quit  a  church 
which  is  no  longer  one. 

But  the  religion  of  England,  —  is  it  the  Estab- 
lished Church  ?  no  ;  is  it  the  sects  ?  no ;  they  are 
only  perpetuations  of  some  private  man's  dissent, 
and  are  to  the  Established  Church  as  cabs  are  to  a 
coach,  cheaper  and  more  convenient,  but  really  the 
same  thing.  Where  dwells  the  religion  ?  Tell  me 
first  where  dwells  electricity,  or  motion,  or  thought, 
or  gesture.  They  do  not  dwell  or  stay  at  all. 
Electricity  cannot  be  made  fast,  mortared  up  and 
ended,  like  London  Monument  or  the  Tower,  so 
that  you  shall  know  where  to  find  it,  and  keep  it 
fixed,  as  the  English  do  with  their  things,  forever- 
more  ;  it  is  passing,  glancing,  gesticular ;  it  is  a 
traveller,  a  newness,  a  surprise,  a  secret,  which  per- 
plexes them  and  puts  them  out.  Yet,  if  religion  be 
the  doing  of  all  good,  and  for  its  sake  the  suffering 
of  all  evil,  souffrir  de  tout  le  monde,  et  ne  faire 
souffnr  personne,  that  divine  secret  has  existed  in 
England  from  the  days  of  Alfred  to  those  of  Rom- 
illy,  of  Clarksou  and  of  Florence  Nightingale,  and 
in  thousands  who  have  no  fame. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

LITERATURE. 

A  STRONG  common  sense,  which  it  is  not  easy  to 
unseat  or  disturb,  marks  the  English  mind  for  a 
thousand  years  :  a  rude  strength  newly  applied  to 
thought,  as  of  sailors  and  soldiers  who  had  lately 
learned  to  read.  They  have  no  fancy,  and  never 
are  surprised  into  a  covert  or  witty  word,  such  as 
pleased  the  Athenians  and  Italians,  and  was  con- 
vertible into  a  fable  not  long  after ;  but  they  de- 
light in  strong  earthy  expression,  not  mistakable, 
coarsely  true  to  the  human  body,  and,  though 
spoken  among  princes,  equally  fit  and  welcome  to 
the  mob.  This  homeliness,  veracity  and  plain 
style  appear  in  the  earliest  extant  works  and  in 
the  latest.  It  imports  into  songs  and  ballads  the 
smell  of  the  earth,  the  breath  of  cattle,  and,  like  a 
Dutch  painter,  seeks  a  household  charm,  though 
by  pails  and  pans.  They  ask  their  constitutional 
utility  in  verse.  The  kail  and  herrings  are  never 
out  of  sight.  The  poet  nimbly  recovers  himself 
from  every  sally  of  the  imagination.  The  English 
muse  loves  the  farmyard,  the  lane  and  market. 


222  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

She  says,  with  De  Stael,  "I  tramp  in  the  mire 
with  wooden  shoes,  whenever  they  would  force  me 
into  the  clouds."  For  the  Englishman  has  accurate 
perceptions ;  takes  hold  of  things  by  the  right  end, 
and  there  is  no  slipperiness  in  his  grasp.  He  loves 
the  axe,  the  spade,  the  oar,  the  gun,  the  steam- 
pipe  :  he  has  built  the  engine  he  uses.  He  is  ma- 
terialist, economical,  mercantile.  He  must  be 
treated  with  sincerity  and  reality ;  with  muffins, 
and  not  the  promise  of  muffins;  and  prefers  his 
hot  chop,  with  perfect  security  and  convenience  in 
the  eating  of  it,  to  the  chances  of  the  amplest  and 
Frenchiest  bill  of  fare,  engraved  on  embossed  pa- 
per. When  he  is  intellectual,  and  a  poet  or  a  phi- 
losopher, he  carries  the  same  hard  truth  and  the 
same  keen  machinery  into  the  mental  sphere.  His 
mind  must  stand  on  a  fact.  He  will  not  be  baffled, 
or  catch  at  clouds,  but  the  mind  must  have  a  sym- 
bol palpable  and  resisting.  What  he  relishes  in 
Dante  is  the  vise-like  tenacity  with  which  he  holds 
a  mental  image  before  the  eyes,  as  if  it  were  a 
scutcheon  painted  on  a  shield.  Byron  "  liked 
something  craggy  to  break  his  mind  upon."  A 
taste  for  plain  strong  speech,  what  is  called  a  bib- 
lical style,  marks  the  English.  It  is  in  Alfred 
and  the  Saxon  Chronicle  and  in  the  Sagas  of  the 
Northmen.  Latimer  was  homely.  Hobbes  was 
perfect  in  the  "  noble  vulgar  speech."  Donne, 


LITERATURE.  223 

Bunyan,  Milton,  Taylor,  Evelyn,  Pepys,  Hooker, 
Cotton  and  the  translators  wrote  it.  How  realistic 
or  materialistic  in  treatment  of  his  subject  is 
Swift.  He  describes  his  fictitious  persons  as  if 
for  the  police.  Defoe  has  no  insecurity  or  choice. 
Hudibras  has  the  same  hard  mentality,  —  keeping 
the  truth  at  once  to  the  senses  and  to  the  intellect. 

It  is  not  less  seen  in  poetry.  Chaucer's  hard 
painting  of  his  Canterbury  pilgrims  satisfies  the 
senses.  Shakspeare,  Spenser  and  Milton,  in  their 
loftiest  ascents,  have  this  national  grip  and  exacti- 
tude of  mind.  This  mental  materialism  makes  the 
value  of  English  transcendental  genius ;  in  these 
writers  and  in  Herbert,  Henry  More,  Donne  and 
Sir  Thomas  Browne.  The  Saxon  materialism  and 
narrowness,  exalted  into  the  sphere  of  intellect, 
makes  the  very  genius  of  Shakspeare  and  Milton. 
When  it  reaches  the  pure  element,  it  treads  the 
clouds  as  securely  as  the  adamant.  Even  in  its  ele- 
vations materialistic,  its  poetry  is  common  sense  in- 
spired ;  or  iron  raised  to  white  heat. 

The  marriage  of  the  two  qualities  is  in  their 
speech.  It  is  a  tacit  rule  of  the  language  to  make 
the  frame  or  skeleton  of  Saxon  words,  and,  when 
elevation  or  ornament  is  sought,  to  interweave 
Roman,  but  sparingly  ;  nor  is  a  sentence  made  of 
Roman  words  alone,  without  loss  of  strength.  The 
children  and  laborers  use  the  Saxon  unmixed.  The 


224  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Latin  unmixed  is  abandoned  to  the  colleges  and 
Parliament.  Mixture  is  a  secret  of  the  English 
island  ;  and,  in  their  dialect,  the  male  principle  is 
the  Saxon,  the  female,  the  Latin ;  and  they  are 
combined  in  every  discourse.  A  good  writer,  if  he 
has  indulged  in  a  Roman  roundness,  makes  haste 
to  chasten  and  nerve  his  period  by  English  mono- 
syllables. 

When  the  Gothic  nations  came  into  Europe  they 
found  it  lighted  with  the  sun  and  moon  of  Hebrew 
and  of  Greek  genius.  The  tablets  of  their  brain, 
long  kept  in  the  dark,  were  finely  sensible  to  the 
double  glory.  To  the  images  from  this  twin  source 
(of  Christianity  and  art),  the  mind  became  fruitful 
as  by  the  incubation  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Eng- 
lish mind  flowered  in  every  faculty.  The  common- 
sense  was  surprised  and  inspired.  For  two  centu- 
ries England  was  philosophic,  religious,  poetic. 
The  mental  furniture  seemed  of  larger  scale :  the 
memory  capacious  like  the  storehouse  of  the  rains. 
The  ardor  and  endurance  of  study,  the  boldness  and 
facility  of  their  mental  construction,  their  fancy  and 
imagination  and  easy  spanning  of  vast  distances  of 
thought,  the  enterprise  or  accosting  of  new  subjects, 
and,  generally,  the  easy  exertion  of  power,  —  aston- 
ish, like  the  legendary  feats  of  Guy  of  Warwick. 
The  union  of  Saxon  precision  and  Oriental  soaring, 
of  which  Shakspeare  is  the  perfect  example,  ia 


LITERATURE.  225 

shared  in  less  degree  by  the  writers  of  two  centu- 
ries. I  find  not  only  the  great  masters  out  of  all 
rivalry  and  reach,  but  the  whole  writing  of  the 
time  charged  with  a  masculine  force  and  freedom. 

There  is  a  hygienic  simpleness,  rough  vigor  and 
closeness  to  the  matter  in  hand  even  in  the  second 
and  third  class  of  writers ;  and,  I  think,  in  the  com- 
mon style  of  the  people,  as  one  finds  it  in  the  cita- 
tion of  wills,  letters  and  public  documents ;  in  prov- 
erbs and  forms  of  speech.  The  more  hearty  and 
sturdy  expression  may  indicate  that  the  savageness 
of  the  Norseman  was  not  all  gone.  Their  dynamic 
brains  hurled  off  their  words  as  the  revolving  stone 
hurls  off  scraps  of  grit.  I  could  cite  from  the  sev- 
enteenth century  sentences  and  phrases  of  edge  not 
to  be  matched  in  the  nineteenth.  Their  poets  by 
simple  force  of  mind  equalized  themselves  with  the 
accumulated  science  of  ours.  The  country  gentle- 
men had  a  posset  or  drink  they  called  October ; 
and  the  poets,  as  if  by  this  hint,  knew  how  to  distil 
the  whole  season  into  their  autumnal  verses  :  and 
as  nature,  to  pique  the  more,  sometimes  works  up 
deformities  into  beauty  in  some  rare  Aspasia  or 
Cleopatra ;  and  as  the  Greek  art  wrought  many  a 
vase  or  column,  in  which  too  long  or  too  lithe,  or 
nodes,  or  pits  and  flaws  are  made  a  beauty  of  ;  — 
so  these  were  so  quick  and  vital  that  they  could 
charm  and  enrich  by  mean  and  vulgar  objects. 

VOL.  V.  15 


226  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

A  man  must  think  that  age  well  taught  and 
thoughtful,  by  which  masques  and  poems,  like 
those  of  Ben  Jonson,  full  of  heroic  sentiment  in  a 
manly  style,  were  received  with  favor.  The  unique 
fact  in  literary  history,  the  unsurprised  reception 
of  Shakspeare  ;  —  the  reception  proved  by  his  mak- 
ing his  fortune ;  and  the  apathy  proved  by  the  ab- 
sence of  all  contemporary  panegyric,  —  seems  to 
demonstrate  an  elevation  in  the  mind  of  the  people. 
Judge  of  the  splendor  of  a  nation  by  the  insignifi- 
cance of  great  individuals  in  it.  The  manner  in 
which  they  learned  Greek  and  Latin,  before  our 
modern  facilities  were  yet  ready ;  without  diction- 
aries, grammars,  or  indexes,  by  lectures  of  a  pro- 
fessor, followed  by  their  own  searchings,  —  required 
a  more  robust  memory,  and  cooperation  of  all  the 
faculties;  and  their  scholars,  Camden,  Usher,  Sel- 
den,  Mede,  Gataker,  Hooker,  Taylor,  Burton,  Beutr 
ley,  Brian  Walton,  acquired  the  solidity  and  method 
of  engineers. 

The  influence  of  Plato  tinges  the  British  genius. 
Their  minds  loved  analogy ;  were  cognisant  of  re- 
semblances, and  climbers  on  the  staircase  of  unity. 
'T  is  a  very  old  strife  between  those  who  elect  to 
see  identity  and  those  who  elect  to  see  discrep- 
ances ;  and  it  renews  itself  in  Britain.  The  poets, 
of  course,  are  of  one  part ;  the  men  of  the  world, 
of  the  other.  But  Britain  had  many  disciples  of 


LITERATURE.  227 

Plato  ;  —  More,  Hooker,  Bacon,  Sidney,  Lord 
Brooke,  Herbert,  Browne,  Donne,  Spenser,  Chap- 
man, Milton,  Crashaw,  Norris,  Cudworth,  Berke- 
ley, Jeremy  Taylor. 

Lord  Bacon  has  the  English  duality.  His  cen- 
turies of  observations  on  useful  science,  and  his  ex- 
periments, I  suppose,  were  worth  nothing.  One 
hint  of  Franklin,  or  Watt,  or  Dalton,  or  Davy,  or 
any  one  who  had  a  talent  for  experiment,  was 
worth  all  his  lifetime  of  exquisite  trifles.  But  he 
drinks  of  a  diviner  stream,  and  marks  the  influx 
of  idealism  into  England.  Where  that  goes,  is 
poetry,  health  and  progress.  The  rules  of  its  gene- 
sis or  its  diffusion  are  not  known.  That  knowl- 
edge, if  we  had  it,  would  supersede  all  that  we  call 
science  of  the  mind.  It  seems  an  affair  of  race,  or 
of  meta-chemistry ;  —  the  vital  point  being,  how 
far  the  sense  of  unity,  or  instinct  of  seeking  re- 
semblances, predominated.  For  wherever  the  mind 
takes  a  step,  it  is  to  put  itself  at  one  with  a  larger 
class,  discerned  beyond  the  lesser  class  with  which 
it  has  been  conversant.  Hence,  all  poetry  and  all 
affirmative  action  comes. 

Bacon,  in  the  structure  of  his  mind,  held  of  the 
analogists,  of  the  idealists,  or  (as  we  popularly  say, 
naming  from  the  best  example)  Platonists.  Who- 
ever discredits  analogy  and  requires  heaps  of  facts 
before  any  theories  can  be  attempted,  has  no  poetic 


228  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

power,  and  nothing  original  or  beautiful  will  be 
produced  by  him.  Locke  is  as  surely  the  influx 
of  decomposition  and  of  prose,  as  Bacon  and  the 
Platonists  of  growth.  The  Platonic  is  the  poetic 
tendency ;  the  so-called  scientific  is  the  negative 
and  poisonous.  'T  is  quite  certain  that  Spenser, 
Burns,  Byron  and  Wordsworth  will  be  Platonists, 
and  that  the  dull  men  will  be  Lockists.  Then  poli- 
tics and  commerce  will  absorb  from  the  educated 
class  men  of  talents  without  genius,  precisely  be- 
cause such  have  no  resistance. 

Bacon,  capable  of  ideas,  yet  devoted  to  ends, 
required  in  his  map  of  the  mind,  first  of  all,  uni- 
versality, or  prima  philosophia  ;  the  receptacle  for 
all  such  profitable  observations  and  axioms  as  fall 
not  within  the  compass  of  any  of  the  special  parts 
of  philosophy,  but  are  more  common  and  of  a 
higher  stage.  He  held  this  element  essential:  it 
is  never  out  of  mind :  he  never  spares  rebukes  for 
such  as  neglect  it ;  believing  that  no  perfect  dis- 
covery can  be  made  in  a  flat  or  level,  but  you  must 
ascend  to  a  higher  science.  "  If  any  man  thinketh 
philosophy  and  universality  to  be  idle  studies,  he 
doth  not  consider  that  all  professions  are  from 
thence  served  and  supplied ;  and  this  I  take  to  be 
a  great  cause  that  has  hindered  the  progression  of 
learning,  because  these  fundamental  knowledges 
have  been  studied  but  in  passage."  He  explained 


LITERATURE.  229 

himself  by  giving  various  quaint  examples  of  the 
summary  or  common  laws  of  which  each  science 
has  its  own  illustration.  He  complains  that  "  he 
finds  this  part  of  learning  very  deficient,  the  pro- 
founder  sort  of  wits  drawing  a  bucket  now  and 
then  for  their  own  use,  but  the  spring-head  unvis- 
ited.  This  was  the  dry  light  which  did  scorch  and 
offend  most  men's  watery  natures."  Plato  had 
signified  the  same  sense,  when  he  said  "  All  the 
great  arts  require  a  subtle  and  speculative  research 
into  the  law  of  nature,  since  loftiness  of  thought 
and  perfect  mastery  over  every  subject  seem  to  be 
derived  from  some  such  source  as  this.  This  Per- 
icles had,  in  addition  to  a  great  natural  genius. 
For,  meeting  with  Anaxagoras,  who  was  a  person 
of  this  kind,  he  attached  himself  to  him,  and  nour- 
ished himself  with  sublime  speculations  on  the  ab- 
solute intelligence ;  and  imported  thence  into  the 
oratorical  art  whatever  could  be  useful  to  it." 

A  few  generalizations  always  circulate  in  the 
world,  whose  authors  we  do  not  rightly  know,  which 
astonish,  and  appear  to  be  avenues  to  vast  king- 
doms of  thought,  and  these  are  in  the  world  con- 
stants, like  the  Copernican  and  Newtonian  theories 
in  physics.  In  England  these  may  be  traced  usu- 
ally to  Shakspeare,  Bacon,  Milton,  or  Hooker,  even 
to  Van  Helmont  and  Behmen,  and  do  all  have  a 
kind  of  filial  retrospect  to  Plato  and  the  Greeks. 


230  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Of  this  kind  is  Lord  Bacon's  sentence,  that  "  Na- 
ture is  commanded  by  obeying  her ; "  his  doctrine 
of  poetry,  which  "  accommodates  the  shows  of 
things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind,"  or  the  Zoroas- 
trian  definition  of  poetry,  mystical,  yet  exact,  "  ap- 
parent pictures  of  unapparent  natures ;  "  Spenser's 
creed  that  "  soul  is  form,  and  doth  the  body  make ; " 
the  theory  of  Berkeley,  that  we  have  no  certain  as- 
surance of  the  existence  of  matter  ;  Doctor  Samuel 
Clarke's  argument  for  theism  from  the  nature  of 
space  and  time ;  Harrington's  political  rule  that 
power  must  rest  on  land,  —  a  rule  which  requires 
to  be  liberally  interpreted ;  the  theory  of  Sweden- 
borg,  so  cosmically  applied  by  him,  that  the  man 
makes  his  heaven  and  hell ;  Hegel's  study  of  civil 
history,  as  the  conflict  of  ideas  and  the  victory  of 
the  deeper  thought;  the  identity  -  philosophy  of 
Schelling,  couched  in  the  statement  that  "  all  dif- 
ference is  quantitative."  So  the  very  announce- 
ment of  the  theory  of  gravitation,  of  Kepler's  three 
harmonic  laws,  and  even  of  Dalton's  doctrine  of 
definite  proportions,  finds  a  sudden  response  in  the 
mind,  which  remains  a  superior  evidence  to  empiri- 
cal demonstrations.  I  cite  these  generalizations, 
some  of  which  are  more  recent,  merely  to  indicate 
a  class.  Not  these  particulars,  but  the  mental  plane 
or  the  atmosphere  from  which  they  emanate  was  the 
home  and  element  of  the  writers  and  readers  in 


LITERATURE.  231 

what  we  loosely  call  the  Elizabethan  age  (say,  in 
literary  history,  the  period  from  1575  to  1625),  yet 
a  period  almost  short  enough  to  justify  Ben  Jon- 
son's  remark  on  Lord  Bacon,  —  "About  his  time, 
and  within  his  view,  were  born  all  the  wits  that 
could  honor  a  nation,  or  help  study." 

Such  richness  of  genius  had  not  existed  more 
than  once  before.  These  heights  could  not  be 
maintained.  As  we  find  stumps  of  vast  trees  in 
our  exhausted  soils,  and  have  received  traditions 
of  their  ancient  fertility  to  tillage,  so  history  reck- 
ons epochs  in  which  the  intellect  of  famed  races 
became  effete.  So  it  fared  with  English  genius. 
These  heights  were  followed  by  a  meanness  and  a 
descent  of  the  mind  into  lower  levels ;  the  loss  of 
wings ;  no  high  speculation.  Locke,  to  whom  the 
meaning  of  ideas  was  unknown,  became  the  type  of 
philosophy,  and  his  "  understanding  "  the  measure, 
in  all  nations,  of  the  English  intellect.  His  coun- 
trymen forsook  the  lofty  sides  of  Parnassus,  on 
which  they  had  once  walked  with  echoing  steps,  and 
disused  the  studies  once  so  beloved ;  the  powers  of 
thought  fell  into  neglect.  The  later  English  want 
the  faculty  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  of  grouping 
men  in  natural  classes  by  an  insight  of  general 
laws,  so  deep  that  the  rule  is  deduced  with  equal 
precision  from  few  subjects,  or  from  one,  as  from 
multitudes  of  lives.  Shakspeare  is  supreme  in 


232  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

that,  as  in  all  the  great  mental  energies.  The  Ger- 
mans generalize :  the  English  cannot  interpret  the 
German  mind.  German  science  comprehends  the 
English.  The  absence  of  the  faculty  in  England 
is  shown  by  the  timidity  which  accumulates  moun- 
tains of  facts,  as  a  bad  general  wants  myriads  of 
men  and  miles  of  redoubts  to  compensate  the  in- 
spirations of  courage  and  conduct. 

The  English  shrink  from  a  generalization.  "  They 
do  not  look  abroad  into  universality,  or  they  draw 
only  a  bucketful  at  the  fountain  of  the  First  Phi- 
losophy for  their  occasion,  and  do  not  go  to  the 
spring  -  head."  Bacon,  who  said  this,  is  almost 
unique  among  his  countrymen  in  that  faculty ;  at 
least  among  the  prose -writers.  Milton,  who  was 
the  stair  or  high  table-land  to  let  down  the  English 
genius  from  the  summits  of  Shakspeare,  used  this 
privilege  sometimes  in  poetry,  more  rarely  in  prose. 
For  a  long  interval  afterwards,  it  is  not  found. 
Burke  was  addicted  to  generalizing,  but  his  was  a 
shorter  line ;  as  his  thoughts  have  less  depth,  they 
have  less  compass.  Hume's  abstractions  are  not 
deep  or  wise.  He  owes  his  fame  to  one  keen  ob- 
servation, that  no  copula  had  been  detected  be- 
tween any  cause  and  effect,  either  in  physics  or 
in  thought;  that  the  term  cause  and  effect  was 
loosely  or  gratuitously  applied  to  what  we  know 
only  as  consecutive,  not  at  all  as  causal.  Doctor 


LITERATURE.  233 

Johnson's  written  abstractions  have  little  value; 
the  tone  of  feeling  in  them  makes  their  chief  worth. 
Mr.  Hallam,  a  learned  and  elegant  scholar,  has 
written  the  history  of  European  literature  for  three 
centuries,  —  a  performance  of  great  ambition,  in- 
asmuch as  a  judgment  was  to  be  attempted  on  every 
book.  But  his  eye  does  not  reach  to  the  ideal 
standards :  the  verdicts  are  all  dated  from  London ; 
all  new  thought  must  be  cast  into  the  old  moulds. 
The  expansive  element  which  creates  literature  is 
steadily  denied.  Plato  is  resisted,  and  his  school. 
Hallam  is  uniformly  polite,  but  with  deficient  sym- 
pathy; writes  with  resolute  generosity,  but  is  un- 
conscious of  the  deep  worth  which  lies  in  the  mys- 
tics, and  which  often  outvalues  as  a  seed  of  power 
and  a  source  of  revolution  all  the  correct  writers 
and  shining  reputations  of  their  day.  He  passes 
in  silence,  or  dismisses  with  a  kind  of  contempt, 
the  profounder  masters :  a  lover  of  ideas  is  not  only 
uncongenial,  but  unintelligible.  Hallam  inspires 
respect  by  his  knowledge  and  fidelity,  by  his  mani- 
fest love  of  good  books,  and  he  lifts  himself  to  own 
better  than  almost  any  the  greatness  of  Shakspeare, 
and  better  than  Johnson  he  appreciates  Milton. 
But  in  Hallam,  or  in  the  firmer  intellectual  nerve 
of  Mackintosh,  one  still  finds  the  same  type  of  Eng- 
lish genius.  It  is  wise  and  rich,  but  it  lives  on  its 
capital.  It  is  retrospective.  How  can  it  discern 


234  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

and  hail  the  new  forms  that  are  looming  up  on  the 
horizon,  —  new  and  gigantic  thoughts  which  cannot 
dress  themselves  out  of  any  old  wardrobe  of  the 


The  essays,  the  fiction  and  the  poetry  of  the  day 
have  the  like  municipal  limits.  Dickens,  with  pre- 
ternatural apprehension  of  the  language  of  man- 
ners and  the  varieties  of  street  life ;  with  pathos 
and  laughter,  with  patriotic  and  still  enlarging 
generosity,  writes  London  tracts.  He  is  a  painter 
of  English  details,  like  Hogarth  ;  local  and  tempo- 
rary in  his  tints  and  style,  and  local  in  his  aims. 
Bulwer,  an  industrious  writer,  with  occasional  abil- 
ity, is  distinguished  for  his  reverence  of  intellect 
as  a  temporality,  and  appeals  to  the  worldly  am- 
bition of  the  student.  His  romances  tend  to  fan 
these  low  flames.  Their  novelists  despair  of  the 
heart.  Thackeray  finds  that  God  has  made  no  al- 
lowance for  the  poor  thing  in  his  universe,  — 
more  's  the  pity,  he  thinks,  —  but  't  is  not  for  us 
to  be  wiser ;  we  must  renounce  ideals  and  accept 
London. 

The  brilliant  Macaulay,  who  expresses  the  tone 
of  the  English  governing  classes  of  the  day,  ex- 
plicitly teaches  that  good  means  good  to  eat,  good 
to  wear,  material  commodity;  that  the  glory  of 
modern  philosophy  is  its  direction  on  "  fruit ;  "  to 
yield  economical  inventions ;  and  that  its  merit  is 


LITERATURE.  235 

to  avoid  ideas  and  avoid  morals.  He  thinks  it  the 
distinctive  merit  of  the  Baconian  philosophy  in  its 
triumph  over  the  old  Platonic,  its  disentangling  the 
intellect  from  theories  of  the  all-Fair  and  all-Good, 
and  pinning  it  down  to  the  making  a  better  sick 
chair  and  a  better  wine-whey  for  an  invalid ;  —  this 
not  ironically,  but  in  good  faith; — that,  "solid  ad- 
vantage," as  he  calls  it,  meaning  always  sensual 
benefit,  is  the  only  good.  The  eminent  benefit  of 
astronomy  is  the  better  navigation  it  creates  to  en- 
able the  fruit-ships  to  bring  home  their  lemons  and 
wine  to  the  London  grocer.  It  was  a  curious  r6- 
sult,  in  which  the  civility  and  religion  of  England 
for  a  thousand  years  ends  in  denying  morals  and 
reducing  the  intellect  to  a  sauce-pan.  The  critic 
hides  his  skepticism  under  the  English  cant  of  prac- 
tical. To  convince  the  reason,  to  touch  the  con- 
science, is  romantic  pretension.  The  fine  arts  fall 
to  the  ground.  Beauty,  except  as  luxurious  com- 
modity, does  not  exist.  It  is  very  certain,  I  may 
say  in  passing,  that  if  Lord  Bacon  had  been  only 
the  sensualist  his  critic  pretends,  he  would  never 
have  acquired  the  fame  which  now  entitles  him  to 
this  patronage.  It  is  because  he  had  imagination, 
the  leisures  of  the  spirit,  and  basked  in  an  element 
of  contemplation  out  of  all  modern  English  atmos- 
pheric gauges,  that  he  is  impressive  to  the  imagina- 
tions of  men  and  has  become  a  potentate  not  to  be 


236  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

ignored.  Sir  David  Brewster  sees  the  high  place  of 
Bacon,  without  finding  Newton  indebted  to  him,  and 
thinks  it  a  mistake.  Bacon  occupies  it  by  specific 
gravity  or  levity,  not  by  any  feat  he  did,  or  by  any 
tutoring  more  or  less  of  Newton  &c.,  but  as  an  ef- 
fect of  the  same  cause  which  showed  itself  more  pro- 
nounced afterwards  in  Hooke,  Boyle  and  Halley. 

Coleridge,  a  catholic  mind,  with  a  hunger  for 
ideas ;  with  eyes  looking  before  and  after  to  the 
highest  bards  and  sages,  and  who  wrote  and  spoke 
the  only  high  criticism  in  his  tune,  is  one  of  those 
who  save  England  from  the  reproach  of  no  longer 
possessing  the  capacity  to  appreciate  what  rarest 
wit  the  island  has  yielded.  Yet  the  misfortune  of 
his  life,  his  vast  attempts  but  most  inadequate  per- 
formings,  failing  to  accomplish  any  one  master- 
piece, —  seems  to  mark  the  closing  of  an  era.  Even 
in  him,  the  traditional  Englishman  was  too  strong 
for  the  philosopher,  and  he  fell  into  accommoda- 
tions ;  and  as  Burke  had  striven  to  idealize  the 
English  State,  so  Coleridge  '  narrowed  his  mind ' 
in  the  attempt  to  reconcile  the  Gothic  rule  and 
dogma  of  the  Anglican  Church,  with  eternal  ideas. 
But  for  Coleridge,  and  a  lurking  taciturn  minority 
uttering  itself  in  occasional  criticism,  oftener  in 
private  discourse,  one  would  say  that  in  Germany 
and  in  America  is  the  best  mind  in  England  rightly 
respected.  It  is  the  surest  sign  of  national  decay. 


LITERATURE.  237 

when  the  Brarains  can  no  longer  read  or  under- 
stand the  Braminical  philosophy. 

In  the  decomposition  and  asphyxia  that  followed 
all  this  materialism,  Carlyle  was  driven  by  his  dis- 
gust at  the  pettiness  and  the  cant,  into  the  preach- 
ing of  Fate.  In  comparison  with  all  this  rotten- 
ness, any  check,  any  cleansing,  though  by  fire, 
seemed  desirable  and  beautiful.  He  saw  little  dif- 
ference in  the  gladiators,  or  the  "  causes  "  for  which 
they  combated  ;  the  one  comfort  was,  that  they 
were  all  going  speedily  into  the  abyss  together. 
And  his  imagination,  finding  no  nutriment  in  any 
creation,  avenged  itself  by  celebrating  the  majestic 
beauty  of  the  laws  of  decay.  The  necessities  of 
mental  structure  force  all  minds  into  a  few  catego- 
ries ;  and  where  impatience  of  the  tricks  of  men 
makes  Nemesis  amiable,  and  builds  altars  to  the 
negative  Deity,  the  inevitable  recoil  is  to  heroism 
or  the  gallantry  of  the  private  heart,  which  decks 
its  immolation  with  glory,  in  the  unequal  combat 
of  will  against  fate. 

Wilkinson,  the  editor  of  Swedenborg,  the  anno- 
tator  of  Fourier  and  the  champion  of  Hahnemann, 
has  brought  to  metaphysics  and  to  physiology  a  na- 
tive vigor,  with  a  catholic  perception  of  relations, 
equal  to  the  highest  attempts,  and  a  rhetoric  like 
the  armory  of  the  invincible  knights  of  old.  There 
is  in  the  action  of  his  mind  a  long  Atlantic  roll  not 


238  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

known  except  in  deepest  waters,  and  only  lacking 
what  ought  to  accompany  such  powers,  a  manifest 
centrality.  If  his  mind  does  not  rest  in  immovable 
biases,  perhaps  the  orbit  is  larger  and  the  return  is 
not  yet :  but  a  master  should  inspire  a  confidence 
that  he  will  adhere  to  his  convictions  and  give  his 
present  studies  always  the  same  high  place. 

It  would  be  easy  to  add  exceptions  to  the  limit- 
ary tone  of  English  thought,  and  much  more  easy 
to  adduce  examples  of  excellence  in  particular 
veins  ;  and  if,  going  out  of  the  region  of  dogma,  we 
pass  into  that  of  general  culture,  there  is  no  end  to 
the  graces  and  amenities,  wit,  sensibility  and  eru- 
dition of  the  learned  class.  But  the  artificial  suc- 
cor which  marks  all  English  performance  appears 
in  letters  also :  much  of  their  aesthetic  production 
is  antiquarian  and  manufactured,  and  literary  rep- 
utations have  been  achieved  by  forcible  men,  whose 
relation  to  literature  was  purely  accidental,  but 
who  were  driven  by  tastes  and  modes  they  found 
in  vogue  into  their  several  careers.  So,  at  this  mo- 
ment, every  ambitious  young  man  studies  geology  : 
so  members  of  Parliament  are  made,  and  church- 
men. 

The  bias  of  Englishmen  to  practical  skill  has  re- 
acted on  the  national  mind.  They  are  incapable  of 
an  inutility,  and  respect  the  five  mechanic  powers 
even  in  their  song.  The  voice  of  their  modern 


LITERATURE.  239 

muse  has  a  slight  hint  of  the  steam-whistle,  and 
the  poem  is  created  as  an  ornament  and  finish  of 
their  monarchy,  and  by  no  means  as  the  bird  of 
a  new  morning  which  forgets  the  past  world  in  the 
full  enjoyment  of  that  which  is  forming.  They  are 
with  difficulty  ideal ;  they  are  the  most  conditioned 
men,  as  if,  having  the  best  conditions,  they  could 
not  bring  themselves  to  forfeit  them.  Every  one 
of  them  is  a  thousand  years  old  and  lives  by  his 
memory :  and  when  you  say  this,  they  accept  it  as 
praise. 

Nothing  comes  to  the  book-shops  but  politics, 
travels,  statistics,  tabulation  and  engineering ;  and 
even  what  is  called  philosophy  and  letters  is  me- 
chanical in  its  structure,  as  if  inspiration  had 
ceased,  as  if  no  vast  hope,  no  religion,  no  song  of 
joy,  no  wisdom,  no  analogy  existed  any  more.  The 
tone  of  colleges  and  of  scholars  and  of  literary  soci- 
ety  has  this  mortal  air.  I  seem  to  walk  on  a  marble 
floor,  where  nothing  will  grow.  They  exert  every 
variety  of  talent  on  a  lower  ground  and  may  be 
said  to  live  and  act  in  a  sub-mind.  They  have  lost 
all  commanding  views  in  literature,  philosophy  and 
science.  A  good  Englishman  shuts  himself  out  of 
three  fourths  of  his  mind  and  confines  himself  to 
one  fourth.  He  has  learning,  good  sense,  power  of 
labor,  and  logic ;  but  a  faith  in  the  laws  of  the 
mind  like  that  of  Archimedes  ;  a  belief  like  that  of 


240  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

Euler  and  Kepler,  that  experience  must  follow  and 
not  lead  the  laws  of  the  mind ;  a  devotion  to  the 
theory  of  politics  like  that  of  Hooker  and  Milton 
and  Harrington,  the  modern  English  mind  repudi- 
ates. 

I  fear  the  same  fault  lies  in  their  science,  since 
they  have  known  how  to  make  it  repulsive  and  be- 
reave nature  of  its  charm ;  —  though  perhaps  the 
complaint  flies  wider,  and  the  vice  attaches  to  many 
more  than  to  British  physicists.  The  eye  of  the 
naturalist  must  have  a  scope  like  nature  itself,  a 
susceptibility  to  all  impressions,  alive  to  the  heart 
as  well  as  to  the  logic  of  creation.  But  English 
science  puts  humanity  to  the  door.  It  wants  the 
connection  which  is  the  test  of  genius.  The  sci- 
ence is  false  by  not  being  poetic.  It  isolates  the 
reptile  or  mollusk  it  assumes  to  explain  ;  whilst  rep- 
tile or  mollusk  only  exists  in  system,  in  relation. 
The  poet  only  sees  it  as  an  inevitable  step  in  the 
path  of  the  Creator.  But,  in  England,  one  hermit 
finds  this  fact,  and  another  finds  that,  and  lives 
and  dies  ignorant  of  its  value.  There  are  great  ex- 
ceptions, of  John  Hunter,  a  man  of  ideas ;  perhaps 
of  Robert  Brown,  the  botanist ;  and  of  Richard 
Owen,  who  has  imported  into  Britain  the  German 
homologies,  and  enriched  science  with  contributions 
of  his  own,  adding  sometimes  the  divination  of  the 
old  masters  to  the  unbroken  power  of  labor  in  the 


LITERATURE.  241 

English  mind.  But  for  the  most  part  the  natural 
science  in  England  is  out  of  its  loyal  alliance  with 
morals,  and  is  as  void  of  imagination  and  free  play 
of  thought  as  conveyancing.  It  stands  in  strong 
contrast  with  the  genius  of  the  Germans,  those 
semi-Greeks,  who  love  analogy,  and,  by  means  of 
their  height  of  view,  preserve  their  enthusiasm  and 
think  for  Europe. 

No  hope,  no  sublime  augury  cheers  the  student, 
no  secure  striding  from  experiment  onward  to  a 
foreseen  law,  but  only  a  casual  dipping  here  and 
there,  like  diggers  in  California  "  prospecting  for  a 
placer  "  that  will  pay.  A  horizon  of  brass  of  the 
diameter  of  his  umbrella  shuts  down  around  his 
senses.  Squalid  contentment  with  conventions,  sa- 
tire at  the  names  of  philosophy  and  religion,  paro- 
chial and  shop-till  politics,  and  idolatry  of  usage, 
betray  the  ebb  of  life  and  spirit.  As  they  trample 
on  nationalities  to  reproduce  London  and  London- 
ers in  Europe  and  Asia,  so  they  fear  the  hostility 
of  ideas,  of  poetry,  of  religion,  —  ghosts  which  they 
cannot  lay;  and,  having  attempted  to  domesticate 
and  dress  the  Blessed  Soul  itself  in  English  broad- 
cloth and  gaiters,  they  are  tormented  with  fear  that 
herein  lurks  a  force  that  will  sweep  their  system 
away.  The  artists  say,  "  Nature  puts  them  out  "  ; 
the  scholars  have  become  un-ideal.  They  parry 
earnest  speech  with  banter  and  levity ;  they  laugh 


242  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

you  down,  or  they  change  the  subject.  "  The  fact 
is,"  say  they  over  their  wine,  "  all  that  about  lib- 
erty, and  so  forth,  is  gone  by ;  it  won't  do  any 
longer."  The  practical  and  comfortable  oppress 
them  with  inexorable  claims,  and  the  smallest 
fraction  of  power  remains  for  heroism  and  poetry. 
No  poet  dares  murmur  of  beauty  out  of  the  pre- 
cinct of  his  rhymes.  No  priest  dares  hint  at  a 
Providence  which  does  not  respect  English  utility. 
The  island  is  a  roaring  volcano  of  fate,  of  material 
values,  of  tariffs  and  laws  of  repression,  glutted 
markets  and  low  prices. 

In  the  absence  of  the  highest  aims,  of  the  pure 
love  of  knowledge  and  the  surrender  to  nature, 
there  is  the  suppression  of  the  imagination,  the  pri- 
apism  of  the  senses  and  the  understanding ;  we 
have  the  factitious  instead  of  the  natural ;  tasteless 
expense,  arts  of  comfort,  and  the  rewarding  as  an 
illustrious  inventor  whosoever  will  contrive  one  im- 
pediment more  to  interpose  between  the  man  and 
his  objects. 

Thus  poetry  is  degraded  and  made  ornamental. 
Pope  and  his  school  wrote  poetry  fit  to  put  round 
frosted  cake.  What  did  Walter  Scott  write  with- 
out stint?  a  rhymed  traveller's  guide  to  Scotland. 
And  the  libraries  of  verses  they  print  have  this 
Birmingham  character.  How  many  volumes  of 
well-bred  metre  we  must  jingle  through,  before  we 


LITERATURE.  248 

can  Toe  filled,  taught,  renewed !  "We  want  the 
miraculous  ;  the  beauty  which  we  can  manufacture 
at  no  mill,  —  can  give  no  account  of ;  the  beauty 
of  which  Chaucer  and  Chapman  had  the  secret. 
The  poetry  of  course  is  low  and  prosaic  ;  only  now 
and  then,  as  in  Wordsworth,  conscientious  ;  or  in 
Byron,  passional ;  or  in  Tennyson,  factitious.  But 
if  I  should  count  the  poets  who  have  contributed  to 
the  Bible  of  existing  England  sentences  of  guidance 
and  consolation  which  are  still  glowing  and  effect- 
ive, —  how  few !  Shall  I  find  my  heavenly  bread 
in  the  reigning  poets  ?  Where  is  great  design  in 
modern  English  poetry?  The  English  have  lost 
sight  of  the  fact  that  poetry  exists  to  speak  the 
spiritual  law,  and  that  no  wealth  of  description  or 
of  fancy  is  yet  essentially  new  and  out  of  the  limits 
of  prose,  until  this  condition  is  reached.  Therefore 
the  grave  old  poets,  like  the  Greek  artists,  heeded 
their  designs,  and  less  considered  the  finish.  It 
was  their  office  to  lead  to  the  divine  sources,  out 
of  which  all  this  and  much  more,  readily  springs  ; 
and,  if  this  religion  is  in  the  poetry,  it  raises  us  to 
some  purpose  and  we  can  well  afford  some  staidness 
or  hardness,  or  want  of  popular  tune  in  the  verses. 
The  exceptional  fact  of  the  period  is  the  genius 
of  Wordsworth.  He  had  no  master  but  nature 
and  solitude.  "  He  wrote  a  poem,"  says  Landor, 
"  without  the  aid  of  war."  His  verse  is  the  voice 


244  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

of  sanity  in  a  worldly  and  ambitious  age.  One  re- 
grets that  his  temperament  was  not  more  liquid 
and  musical.  He  has  written  longer  than  he  was 
inspired.  But  for  the  rest,  he  has  no  competitor. 

Tennyson  is  endowed  precisely  in  points  where 
Wordsworth  wanted.  There  is  no  finer  ear,  nor 
more  command  of  the  keys  of  language.  Color, 
like  the  dawn,  flows  over  the  horizon  from  his  pen- 
cil, in  waves  so  rich  that  we  do  not  miss  the  central 
form.  Through  all  his  refinements,  too,  he  has 
reached  the  public,  —  a  certificate  of  good  sense 
and  general  power,  since  he  who  aspires  to  be  the 
English  poet  must  be  as  large  as  London,  not  in 
the  same  kind  as  London,  but  in  his  own  kind. 
But  he  wants  a  subject,  and  climbs  no  mount  of 
vision  to  bring  its  secrets  to  the  people.  He  con- 
tents himself  with  describing  the  Englishman  as  he 
is,  and  proposes  no  better.  There  are  all  degrees 
in  poetry  and  we  must  be  thankful  for  every  beau- 
tiful talent.  But  it  is  only  a  first  success,  when 
the  ear  is  gained.  The  best  office  of  the  best  poets 
has  been  to  show  how  low  and  uninspired  was  their 
general  style,  and  that  only  once  or  twice  they  have 
struck  the  high  chord. 

That  expansiveness  which  is  the  essence  of  the 
poetic  element,  they  have  not.  It  was  no  Oxonian, 
but  Hafiz,  who  said,  "  Let  us  be  crowned  with  roses, 
let  us  drink  wine,  and  break  up  the  tiresome  old 
roof  of  heaven  into  new  forms."  A  stanza  of  the 


LITERATURE.  245 

song  of  nature  the  Oxonian  has  no  ear  for,  and  he 
does  not  value  the  salient  and  curative  influence  of 
intellectual  action,  studious  of  truth  without  a  by- 
end. 

By  the  law  of  contraries,  I  look  for  an  irresisti- 
ble taste  for  Orientalism  in  Britain.  For  a  self- 
conceited  modish  life,  made  up  of  trifles,  clinging 
to  a  corporeal  civilization,  hating  ideas,  there  is  no 
remedy  like  the  Oriental  largeness.  That  aston- 
ishes and  disconcerts  English  decorum.  For  once, 
there  is  thunder  it  never  heard,  light  it  never  saw, 
and  power  which  trifles  with  time  and  space.  I 
am  not  surprised  then  to  find  an  Englishman  like 
Warren  Hastings,  who  had  been  struck  with  the 
grand  style  of  thinking  in  the  Indian  writings, 
deprecating  the  prejudices  of  his  countrymen  while 
offering  them  a  translation  of  the  Bhagvat.  "  Might 
I,  an  unlettered  man,  venture  to  prescribe  bounds 
to  the  latitude  of  criticism,  I  should  exclude,  in 
estimating  the  merit  of  such  a  production,  all  rules 
drawn  from  the  ancient  or  modern  literature  of 
Europe,  all  references  to  such  sentiments  or  man- 
ners as  are  become  the  standards  of  propriety  for 
opinion  and  action  in  our  own  modes,  and,  equally, 
all  appeals  to  our  revealed  tenets  of  religion  and 
moral  duty."  1  He  goes  to  bespeak  indulgence  to 
"  ornaments  of  fancy  unsuited  to  our  taste,  and 
passages  elevated  to  a  tract  of  sublimity  into  which 

1  Preface  to  Wilkins's  Translation  of  the  Bhagvat  Geeta. 


246  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

our  habits  of  judgment  will  find  it  difficult  to  pur- 
sue them." 

Meantime,  I  know  that  a  retrieving  power  lies 
in  the  English  race  which  seems  to  make  any  re- 
coil possible ;  in  other  words,  there  is  at  all  times 
a  minority  of  profound  minds  existing  in  the  na- 
tion, capable  of  appreciating  every  soaring  of  intel- 
lect and  every  hint  of  tendency.  While  the  con- 
structive talent  seems  dwarfed  and  superficial,  the 
criticism  is  often  in  the  noblest  tone  and  suggests 
the  presence  of  the  invisible  gods.  I  can  well  be- 
lieve what  I  have  often  heard,  that  there  are  two 
nations  in  England  ;  but  it  is  not  the  Poor  and  the 
Rich,  nor  is  it  the  Normans  and  Saxons,  nor  the 
Celt  and  the  Goth.  These  are  each  always  becom- 
ing the  other  ;  for  Robert  Owen  does  not  exagger- 
ate the  power  of  circumstance.  But  the  two  com- 
plexions, or  two  styles  of  mind,  —  the  perceptive 
class,  and  the  practical  finality  class,  —  are  ever  in 
counterpoise,  interacting  mutually :  one  in  hopeless 
minorities ;  the  other  in  huge  masses ;  one  stu- 
dious, contemplative,  experimenting ;  the  other,  the 
ungrateful  pupil,  scornful  of  the  source  whilst  avail- 
ing itself  of  the  knowledge  for  gain ;  these  two  na- 
tions, of  genius  and  of  animal  force,  though  the 
first  consist  of  only  a  dozen  souls  and  the  second  of 
twenty  millions,  forever  by  their  discord  and  theii 
accord  yield  the  power  of  the  English  State. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE   "  TIMES." 

THE  power  of  the  newspaper  is  familiar  in  Amer- 
ica and  in  accordance  with  our  political  system. 
In  England,  it  stands  in  antagonism  with  the  feu- 
dal institutions,  and  it  is  all  the  more  beneficent 
succor  against  the  secretive  tendencies  of  a  mon- 
archy. The  celebrated  Lord  Somers  "  knew  of 
no  good  law  proposed  and  passed  in  his  time,  to 
which  the  public  papers  had  not  directed  his  at- 
tention." There  is  no  corner  and  no  night.  A 
relentless  inquisition  drags  every  secret  to  the  day, 
turns  the  glare  of  this  solar  microscope  on  every 
malfaisance,  so  as  to  make  the  public  a  more  terri- 
ble spy  than  any  foreigner ;  and  no  weakness  can 
be  taken  advantage  of  by  an  enemy,  since  the  whole 
people  are  already  forewarned.  Thus  England 
rids  herself  of  those  incrustations  which  have  been 
the  ruin  of  old  states.  Of  course,  this  inspection  is 
feared.  No  antique  privilege,  no  comfortable  mo- 
nopoly, but  sees  surely  that  its  days  are  counted;  the 
people  are  familiarized  with  the  reason  of  reform, 
and,  one  by  one,  take  away  every  argument  of  the 


248  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

obstructives.  "  So  your  grace  likes  the  comfort  of 
reading  the  newspapers,"  said  Lord  Mansfield  to 
the  Duke  of  Northumberland  ;  "  mark  my  words ; 
you  and  I  shall  not  live  to  see  it,  but  this  young 
gentleman  (Lord  Eldon)  may,  or  it  may  be  a  little 
later ;  but  a  little  sooner  or  later,  these  newspapers 
will  most  assuredly  write  the  dukes  of  Northum- 
berland out  of  their  titles  and  possessions,  and  the 
country  out  of  its  king."  The  tendency  in  Eng- 
land towards  social  and  political  institutions  like 
those  of  America,  is  inevitable,  and  the  ability  of 
its  journals  is  the  driving  force. 

England  is  full  of  manly,  clever,  well-bred  men 
who  possess  the  talent  of  writing  off-hand  pungent 
paragraphs,  expressing  with  clearness  and  courage 
their  opinion  on  any  person  or  performance.  Val- 
uable or  not,  it  is  a  skill  that  is  rarely  found,  out  of 
the  English  journals.  The  English  do  this,  as  they 
write  poetry,  as  they  ride  and  box,  by  being  edu- 
cated to  it.  Hundreds  of  clever  Praeds  and  Freres 
and  Froudes  and  Hoods  and  Hooks  and  Maginns 
and  Mills  and  Macaulays,  make  poems,  or  short 
essays  for  a  journal,  as  they  make  speeches  in  Par- 
liament and  on  the  hustings,  or  as  they  shoot  and 
ride.  It  is  a  quite  accidental  and  arbitrary  direc- 
tion of  their  general  ability.  Rude  health  and 
spirits,  an  Oxford  education  and  the  habits  of  soci- 
ety are  implied,  but  not  a  ray  of  genius.  It  comes 


THE  "TIMES."  249 

of  the  crowded  state  of  the  professions,  the  violent 
interest  which  all  men  take  in  politics,  the  facility 
of  experimenting  in  the  journals,  and  high  pay. 

The  most  conspicuous  result  of  this  talent  is  the 
"  Times "  newspaper.  No  power  in  England  is 
more  felt,  more  feared,  or  more  obeyed.  What 
you  read  in  the  morning  in  that  journal,  you  shall 
hear  in  the  evening  in  all  society.  It  has  ears 
everywhere,  and  its  information  is  earliest,  com- 
pletest  and  surest.  It  has  risen,  year  by  year,  and 
victory  by  victory,  to  its  present  authority.  I 
asked  one  of  its  old  contributors  whether  it  had 
once  been  abler  than  it  is  now?  "Never,"  he 
said ;  "  these  are  its  palmiest  days."  It  has  shown 
those  qualities  which  are  dear  to  Englishmen, 
unflinching  adherence  to  its  objects,  prodigal  intel- 
lectual ability  and  a  towering  assurance,  backed 
by  the  perfect  organization  in  its  printing-house 
and  its  world-wide  network  of  correspondence  and 
reports.  It  has  its  own  history  and  famous  trophies. 
In  1820,  it  adopted  the  cause  of  Queen  Caroline, 
and  carried  it  against  the  king.  It  adopted  a  poor- 
law  system,  and  almost  alone  lifted  it  through. 
"When  Lord  Brougham  was  in  power,  it  decided 
against  him,  and  pulled  him  down.  It  declared 
war  against  Ireland,  and  conquered  it.  It  adopted 
the  League  against  the  Corn  Laws,  and,  when 
Cobden  had  begun  to  despair,  it  announced  his 


250  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

triumph.  It  denounced  and  discredited  the  French 
Republic  of  1848,  and  checked  every  sympathy 
with  it  in  England,  until  it  had  enrolled  200,000 
special  constables  to  watch  the  Chartists  and  make 
them  ridiculous  on  the  10th  April.  It  first  de- 
nounced and  then  adopted  the  new  French  Empire, 
and  urged  the  French  Alliance  and  its  results.  It 
has  entered  into  each  municipal,  literary  and  social 
question,  almost  with  a  controlling  voice.  It  has 
done  bold  and  seasonable  service  in  exposing 
frauds  which  threatened  the  commercial  commu- 
nity. Meantime,  it  attacks  its  rivals  by  perfecting 
its  printing  machinery,  and  will  drive  them  out  of 
circulation :  for  the  only  limit  to  the  circulation  of 
the  "  Times  "  is  the  impossibility  of  printing  copies 
fast  enough ;  since  a  daily  paper  can  only  be  new 
and  seasonable  for  a  few  hours.  It  will  kill  all  but 
that  paper  which  is  diametrically  in  opposition ; 
since  many  papers,  first  and  last,  have  lived  by 
their  attacks  on  the  leading  journal. 

The  late  Mr.  Walter  was  printer  of  the  "  Times," 
and  had  gradually  arranged  the  whole  materiel  of 
it  in  perfect  system.  It  is  told  that  when  he  de- 
manded a  small  share  .in  the  proprietary  and  was 
refused,  he  said,  "  As  you  please,  gentlemen ;  and 
you  may  take  away  the  '  Times '  from  this  office 
when  you  will ;  I  shall  publish  the  '  New  Times,' 
next  Monday  morning."  The  proprietors,  who  haj 


THE  "TIMES."  251 

already  complained  that  his  charges  for  printing 
were  excessive,  found  that  they  were  in  his  power, 
and  gave  him  whatever  he  wished. 

I  went  one  day  with  a  good  friend  to  the  "  Times  " 
office,  which  was  entered  through  a  pretty  garden- 
yard  in  Printing-House  Square.  We  walked  with 
some  circumspection,  as  if  we  were  entering  a  pow- 
der-mill ;  but  the  door  was  opened  by  a  mild  old 
woman,  and,  by  dint  of  some  transmission  of  cards, 
we  were  at  last  conducted  into  the  parlor  of  Mr. 
Morris,  a  very  gentle  person,  with  no  hostile  appear- 
ances. The  statistics  are  now  quite  out  of  date, 
but  I  remember  he  told  us  that  the  daily  printing 
was  then  35,000  copies;  that  on  the  1st  March, 
1848,  the  greatest  number  ever  printed,  —  54,000 
—  were  issued ;  that,  since  February,  the  daily 
circulation  had  increased  by  8000  copies.  The 
old  press  they  were  then  using  printed  five  or  six 
thousand  sheets  per  hour ;  the  new  machine,  for 
which  they  were  then  building  an  engine,  would 
print  twelve  thousand  per  hour.  Our  entertainer 
confided  us  to  a  courteous  assistant  to  show  us  the 
establishment,  in  which,  1  think,  they  employed  a 
hundred  and  twenty  men.  I  remember  I  saw  the 
reporters'  room,  in  which  they  redact  their  hasty 
stenographs,  but  the  editor's  room,  and  who  is  in 
it,  I  did  not  see,  though  I  shared  the  curiosity  of 
mankind  respecting  it. 


252  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

The  staff  of  the  "  Times  "  has  always  been  made 
up  of  able  men.  Old  Walter,  Sterling,  Bacon, 
Barnes,  Alsiger,  Horace  Twiss,  Jones  Lloyd,  John 
Oxenford,  Mr.  Mosely,  Mr.  Bailey,  have  contrib- 
uted to  its  renown  in  their  special  departments. 
But  it  has  never  wanted  the  first  pens  for  occa- 
sional assistance.  Its  private  information  is  inex- 
plicable, and  recalls  the  stories  of  Fouche's  police, 
whose  omniscience  made  it  believed  that  the  Em- 
press Josephine  must  be  in  his  pay.  It  has  mer- 
cantile and  political  correspondents  in  every  foreign 
city,  and  its  expresses  outrun  the  despatches  of  the 
government.  One  hears  anecdotes  of  the  rise  of 
its  servants,  as  of  the  functionaries  of  the  India 
House.  I  was  told  of  the  dexterity  of  one  of  its 
reporters,  who,  finding  himself,  on  one  occasion, 
where  the  magistrates  had  strictly  forbidden  repor- 
ters, put  his  hands  into  his  coat-pocket,  and  with 
pencil  in  one  hand  and  tablet  in  the  other,  did  his 
work. 

The  influence  of  this  journal  is  a  recognized 
power  in  Europe,  and,  of  course,  none  is  more  con- 
scious of  it  than  its  conductors.  The  tone  of  its 
articles  has  often  been  the  occasion  of  comment 
from  the  official  organs  of  the  continental  courts, 
and  sometimes  the  ground  of  diplomatic  complaint. 
'What  would  the  "Times"  say? 'is  a  terror  in 
Paris,  in  Berlin,  in  Vienna,  in  Copenhagen  and  in 


THE  "TIMES."  253 

Nepaul.  Its  consummate  discretion  and  success 
exhibit  the  English  skill  of  combination.  The 
daily  paper  is  the  work  of  many  hands,  chiefly,  it 
is  said,  of  young  men  recently  from  the  University, 
and  perhaps  reading  law  in  chambers  in  London. 
Hence  the  academic  elegance  and  classic  allusion 
which  adorn  its  columns.  Hence,  too,  the  heat 
and  gallantry  of  its  onset.  But  the  steadiness  of 
the  aim  suggests  the  belief  that  this  fire  is  directed 
and  fed  by  older  engineers ;  as  if  persons  of  exact 
information,  and  with  settled  views  of  policy,  sup- 
plied the  writers  with  the  basis  of  fact  and  the  ob- 
ject to  be  attained,  and  availed  themselves  of  their 
younger  energy  and  eloquence  to  plead  the  cause. 
Both  the  council  and  the  executive  departments 
gain  by  this  division.  Of  two  men  of  equal  ability, 
the  one  who  does  not  write  but  keeps  his  eye  on 
the  course  of  public  affairs,  will  have  the  higher 
judicial  wisdom.  But  the  parts  are  kept  in  con- 
cert, all  the  articles  appear  to  proceed  from  a 
single  will.  The  "  Times  "  never  disapproves  of 
what  itself  has  said,  or  cripples  itself  by  apology 
for  the  absence  of  the  editor,  or  the  indiscretion  of 
him  who  held  the  pen.  It  speaks  out  bluff  and 
bold,  and  sticks  to  what  it  says.  It  draws  from  any 
number  of  learned  and  skilful  contributors;  but 
a  more  learned  and  skilful  person  supervises,  cor- 
rects, and  co-ordinates.  Of  this  closet,  the  secret 


254  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

does  not  transpire.  No  writer  is  suffered  to  claim 
the  authorship  of  any  paper;  every  thing  good, 
from  whatever  quarter,  comes  out  editorially ;  and 
thus,  by  making  the  paper  every  thing  and  those 
who  write  it  nothing,  the  character  and  the  awe  of 
the  journal  gain. 

The  English  like  it  for  its  complete  information. 
A  statement  of  fact  in  the  "  Times  "  is  as  reliable 
as  a  citation  from  Hansard.  Then  they  like  its 
independence ;  they  do  not  know,  when  they  take 
it  up,  what  their  paper  is  going  to  say  :  but,  above 
all,  for  the  nationality  and  confidence  of  its  tone. 
It  thinks  for  them  all ;  it  is  their  understanding 
and  day's  ideal  daguerreotyped.  When  I  see  them 
reading  its  columns,  they  seem  to  me  becoming 
every  moment  more  British.  It  has  the  national 
courage,  not  rash  and  petulant,  but  considerate  and 
determined.  No  dignity  or  wealth  is  a  shield  from 
its  assault.  It  attacks  a  duke  as  readily  as  a  po- 
liceman, and  with  the  most  provoking  airs  of  con- 
descension. It  makes  rude  work  with  the  Board 
of  Admiralty.  The  Bench  of  Bishops  is  still  less 
safe.  One  bishop  fares  badly  for  his  rapacity,  and 
another  for  his  bigotry,  and  a  third  for  his  court- 
liness. It  addresses  occasionally  a  hint  to  Maj- 
esty itself,  and  sometimes  a  hint  which  is  taken. 
There  is  an  air  of  freedom  even  in  their  advertis- 
ing columns,  which  speaks  well  for  England  to  a 


THE  "TIMES."  255 

foreigner.  On  the  days  when  I  arrived  in  London 
in  1847,  I  read,  among  the  daily  announcements, 
one  offering  a  reward  of  fifty  pounds  to  any  per- 
son who  would  put  a  nobleman,  described  by  name 
and  title,  late  a  member  of  Parliament,  into  any 
county  jail  in  England,  he  having  been  convicted 
of  obtaining  money  under  false  pretences. 

Was  never  such  arrogancy  as  the  tone  of  this 
paper.  Every  slip  of  an  Oxonian  or  Cantabrigian 
who  writes  his  first  leader  assumes  that  we  sub- 
dued the  earth  before  we  sat  down  to  write  this 
particular  "  Times."  One  would  think  the  world 
was  on  its  knees  to  the  "Times"  Office  for  its 
daily  breakfast.  But  this  arrogance  is  calculated. 
Who  would  care  for  it,  if  it  "  surmised,"  or 
"  dared  to  confess,"  or  "  ventured  to  predict,"  &c  ? 
No ;  it  is  so,  and  so  it  shall  be. 

The  morality  and  patriotism  of  the  "Times" 
claim  only  to  be  representative,  and  by  no  means 
ideal.  It  gives  the  argument,  not  of  the  majority, 
but  of  the  commanding  class.  Its  editors  know 
better  than  to  defend  Russia,  or  Austria,  or  Eng- 
lish vested  rights,  on  abstract  grounds.  But  they 
give  a  voice  to  the  class  who  at  the  moment  take 
the  lead  ;  and  they  have  an  instinct  for  finding 
where  the  power  now  lies,  which  is  eternally  shift- 
ing its  banks.  Sympathizing  with,  and  speaking 
for  the  class  that  rules  the  hour,  yet  being  apprised 


256  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

of  every  ground-swell,  every  Chartist  resolution, 
every  Church  squabble,  every  strike  in  the  mills, 
they  detect  the  first  tremblings  of  change.  They 
watch  the  hard  and  bitter  struggles  of  the  authors 
of  each  liberal  movement,  year  by  year ;  watching 
them  only  to  taunt  and  obstruct  them, — until,  at 
last,  when  they  see  that  these  have  established 
their  fact,  that  power  is  on  the  point  of  passing  to 
them,  they  strike  in  with  the  voice  of  a  monarch, 
astonish  those  whom  they  succor  as  much  as  those 
whom  they  desert,  and  make  victory  sure.  Of 
course  the  aspirants  see  that  the  "  Times "  is  one 
of  the  goods  of  fortune,  not  to  be  won  but  by 
winning  their  cause. 

"Punch"  is  equally  an  expression  of  English 
good  sense,  as  the  "London  Times."  It  is  the 
comic  version  of  the  same  sense.  Many  of  its  cari- 
catures are  equal  to  the  best  pamphlets,  and  will 
convey  to  the  eye  in  an  instant  the  popular  view 
which  was  taken  of  each  turn  of  public  affairs.  Its 
sketches  are  usually  made  by  masterly  hands,  and 
sometimes  with  genius ;  the  delight  of  every  class, 
because  uniformly  guided  by  that  taste  which  is 
tyrannical  in  England.  It  is  a  new  trait  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  that  the  wit  and  humor  of  Eng- 
land, —  as  in  Punch,  so  in  the  humorists,  Jerrold, 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  Hood,  —  have  taken  the  di- 
rection of  humanity  and  freedom. 


THE  "TIMES."  257 

The  "Times,"  like  every  important  institution, 
shows  the  way  to  a  better.  It  is  a  living  index  of 
the  colossal  British  power.  Its  existence  honors 
the  people  who  dare  to  print  all  they  know,  dare  to 
know  all  the  facts  and  do  not  wish  to  be  flattered 
by  hiding  the  extent  of  the  public  disaster.  There 
is  always  safety  in  valor.  I  wish  I  could  add  that 
this  journal  aspired  to  deserve  the  power  it  wields, 
by  guidance  of  the  public  sentiment  to  the  right. 
It  is  usually  pretended,  in  Parliament  and  else- 
where, that  the  English  press  has  a  high  tone,  — 
which  it  has  not.  It  has  an  imperial  tone,  as  of  a 
powerful  and  independent  nation.  But,  as  with 
other  empires,  its  tone  is  prone  to  be  official,  and 
even  officinal.  The  "Times  "  shares  all  the  limita- 
tions of  the  governing  classes,  and  wishes  never  to 
be  in  a  minority.  If  only  it  dared  to  cleave  to  the 
right,  to  show  the  right  to  be  the  only  expedient, 
and  feed  its  batteries  from  the  central  heart  of  hu* 
manity,  it  might  not  have  so  many  men  of  rank 
among  its  contributors,  but  genius  would  be  its  cor- 
dial and  invincible  ally ;  it  might  now  and  then 
bear  the  brunt  of  formidable  combinations,  but  no 
journal  is  ruined  by  wise  courage.  It  would  be  the 
natural  leader  of  British  reform ;  its  proud  func- 
tion, that  of  being  the  voice  of  Europe,  the  de- 
fender of  the  exile  and  patriot  against  despots, 
would  be  more  effectually  discharged ;  it  would 

VOL.  v.  17 


258  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

have  the  authority  which  is  claimed  for  that  dream 
of  good  men  not  yet  come  to  pass,  an  International 
Congress ;  and  the  least  of  its  victories  would  be  to 
give  to  England  a  new  millennium  of  beneficent 
power. 


CHAPTER  XVT. 
STONEHENGE. 

IT  had  been  agreed  between  my  friend  Mr.  Car- 
lyle  and  me,  that  before  I  left  England  we  should 
make  an  excursion  together  to  Stonehenge,  which 
neither  of  us  had  seen ;  and  the  project  pleased 
my  fancy  with  the  double  attraction  of  the  monu- 
ment and  the  companion.  It  seemed  a  bringing 
together  of  extreme  points,  to  visit  the  oldest  re- 
ligious monument  in  Britain  in  company  with  her 
latest  thinker,  and  one  whose  influence  may  be 
traced  in  every  contemporary  book.  I  was  glad  to 
sum  up  a  little  my  experiences,  and  to  exchange  a 
few  reasonable  words  on  the  aspects  of  England 
with  a  man  on  whose  genius  I  set  a  very  high 
value,  and  who  had  as  much  penetration  and  as 
severe  a  theory  of  duty  as  any  person  in  it.  On 
Friday,  7th  July,  we  took  the  South  Western  Rail- 
way through  Hampshire  to  Salisbury,  where  we 
found  a  carriage  to  convey  us  to  Amesbury.  The 
fine  weather  and  my  friend's  local  knowledge  of 
Hampshire,  in  which  he  is  wont  to  spend  a  part  of 
every  summer,  made  the  way  short.  There  was 


260  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

much  to  say,  too,  of  the  travelling  Americans  and 
their  usual  objects  in  London.  I  thought  it  natu- 
ral that  they  should  give  some  time  to  works  of 
art  collected  here  which  they  cannot  find  at  home, 
and  a  little  to  scientific  clubs  and  museums,  which, 
at  this  moment,  make  London  very  attractive.  But 
my  philosopher  was  not  contented.  Art  and  '  high 
art '  is  a  favorite  target  for  his  wit.  "  Yes,  Kunst 
is  a  great  delusion,  and  Goethe  and  Schiller  wasted 
a  great  deal  of  good  time  on  it :  "  —  and  he  thinks 
he  discovers  that  old  Goethe  found  this  out,  and, 
in  his  later  writings,  changed  his  tone.  As  soon 
as  men  begin  to  talk  of  art,  architecture  and  antiq- 
uities, nothing  good  comes  of  it.  He  wishes  to  go 
through  the  British  Museum  in  silence,  and  thinks 
a  sincere  man  will  see  something  and  say  nothing. 
In  these  days,  he  thought,  it  would  become  an  ar- 
chitect to  consult  only  the  grim  necessity,  and  say, 
4 1  can  build  you  a  coffin  for  such  dead  persons  as 
you  are,  and  for  such  dead  purposes  as  you  have, 
but  you  shall  have  no  ornament.'  For  the  science, 
he  had  if  possible  even  less  tolerance,  and  compared 
the  savans  of  Somerset  House  to  the  boy  who  asked 
Confucius  "  how  many  stars  in  the  sky  ?  "  Confu- 
cius replied,  "  he  minded  things  near  him  :  "  then 
said  the  boy,  "  how  many  hairs  are  there  in  your 
eyebrows  ?  "  Confucius  said,  "  he  did  n't  know  and 
did  n't  care." 


STONEHENGE.  261 

Still  speaking  of  the  Americans,  Carlyle  com- 
plained that  they  dislike  the  coldness  and  exclu- 
siveness  of  the  English,  and  run  away  to  France 
and  go  with  their  countrymen  and  are  amused,  in- 
stead of  manfully  staying  in  London,  and  confront- 
ing Englishmen  and  acquiring  their  culture,  who 
really  have  much  to  teach  them. 

I  told  Carlyle  that  I  was  easily  dazzled,  and  was 
accustomed  to  concede  readily  all  that  an  English- 
man would  ask ;  I  saw  everywhere  in  the  country 
proofs  of  sense  and  spirit,  and  success  of  every 
sort :  I  like  the  people ;  they  are  as  good  as  they 
are  handsome ;  they  have  everything  and  can  do 
everything ;  but  meantime,  I  surely  know  that  as 
soon  as  I  return  to  Massachusetts  I  shall  lapse  at 
once  into  the  feeling,  which  the  geography  of 
America  inevitably  inspires,  that  we  play  the  game 
with  immense  advantage  ;  that  there  and  not  here 
is  the  seat  and  centre  of  the  British  race  ;  and  that 
no  skill  or  activity  can  long  compete  with  the  pro- 
digious natural  advantages  of  that  country,  in  the 
hands  of  the  same  race ;  and  that  England,  an  old 
and  exhausted  island,  must  one  day  be  contented, 
like  other  parents,  to  be  strong  only  in  her  chil- 
dren. But  this  was  a  proposition  which  no  English- 
man of  whatever  condition  can  easily  entertain. 

"We  left  the  train  at  Salisbury  and  took  a  car- 
riage to  Amesbury,  passing  by  Old  Sarum,  a  bare, 


262  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

treeless  hill,  once  containing  the  town  which  sent 
two  members  to  Parliament,  —  now,  not  a  hut ; 
and,  arriving  at  Amesbury,  stopped  at  the  George 
Inn.  After  dinner  we  walked  to  Salisbury  Plain. 
On  the  broad  downs,  under  the  gray  sky,  not  a 
house  was  visible,  nothing  but  Stonehenge,  which 
looked  like  a  group  of  brown  dwarfs  in  the  wide 
expanse,  —  Stonehenge  and  the  barrows,  which 
rose  like  green  bosses  about  the  plain,  and  a  few 
hayricks.  On  the  top  of  a  mountain,  the  old  tem- 
ple would  not  be  more  impressive.  Far  and  wide 
a  few  shepherds  with  their  flocks  sprinkled  the 
plain,  and  a  bagman  drove  along  the  road.  It 
looked  as  if  the  wide  margin  given  in  this  crowded 
isle  to  this  primeval  temple  were  accorded  by  the 
veneration  of  the  British  race  to  the  old  egg  out  of 
which  all  their  ecclesiastical  structures  and  history 
had  proceeded.  Stonehenge  is  a  circular  colonnade 
with  a  diameter  of  a  hundred  feet,  and  enclosing  a 
second  and  a  third  colonnade  within.  We  walked 
round  the  stones  and  clambered  over  them,  to  wont 
ourselves  with  their  strange  aspect  and  groupings, 
and  found  a  nook  sheltered  from  the  wind  among 
them,  where  Carlyle  lighted  his  cigar.  It  was 
pleasant  to  see  that  just  this  simplest  of  all  simple 
structures,  —  two  upright  stones  and  a  lintel  laid 
across,  —  had  long  outstood  all  later  churches  and 
all  history,  and  were  like  what  is  most  permanent 


STONEHENGE.  263 

on  the  face  of  the  planet:  these,  and  the  barrows, 
—  mere  mounds  (of  which  there  are  a  hundred 
and  sixty  within  a  circle  of  three  miles  about 
Stonehenge),  like  the  same  mound  on  the  plain  of 
Troy,  which  still  makes  good  to  the  passing  mari- 
ner on  Hellespont,  the  vaunt  of  Homer  and  the 
fame  of  Achilles.  Within  the  enclosure  grow  but- 
tercups, nettles,  and  all  around,  wild  thyme,  daisy, 
meadowsweet,  goldenrod,  thistle  and  the  carpeting 
grass.  Over  us,  larks  were  soaring  and  singing ;  — 
as  my  friend  said,  "the  larks  which  were  hatched 
last  year,  and  the  wind  which  was  hatched  many 
thousand  years  ago."  We  counted  and  measured 
by  paces  the  biggest  stones,  and  soon  knew  as  much 
as  any  man  can  suddenly  know  of  the  inscrutable 
temple.  There  are  ninety-four  stones,  and  there 
were  once  probably  one  hundred  and  sixty.  The 
temple  is  circular  and  uncovered,  and  the  situation 
fixed  astronomically,  —  the  grand  entrances,  here 
and  at  Abury,  being  placed  exactly  northeast,  "  as 
all  the  gates  of  the  old  cavern  temples  are."  How 
came  the  stones  here  ?  for  these  sarsens,  or  Druid- 
ical  sandstones,  are  not  found  in  this  neighborhood. 
The  sacrificial  stone,  as  it  is  called,  is  the  only  one 
in  all  these  blocks  that  can  resist  the  action  of  fire, 
and  as  I  read  in  the  books,  must  have  been  brought 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles. 

On  almost  every  stone  we  found  the  marks  of  the 


264  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

mineralogist's  hammer  and  chisel.  The  nineteen 
smaller  stones  of  the  inner  circle  are  of  granite.  I, 
who  had  just  come  from  Professor  Sedgwick's  Cam- 
bridge Museum  of  megatheria  and  mastodons,  was 
ready  to  maintain  that  some  cleverer  elephants  or 
mylodonta  had  borne  off  and  laid  these  rocks  one  on 
another.  Only  the  good  beasts  must  have  known 
how  to  cut  a  well- wrought  tenon  and  mortise,  and 
to  smooth  the  surface  of  some  of  the  stones.  The 
chief  mystery  is,  that  any  mystery  should  have 
been  allowed  to  settle  on  so  remarkable  a  monu- 
ment, in  a  country  on  which  all  the  muses  have 
kept  their  eyes  now  for  eighteen  hundred  years. 
We  are  not  yet  too  late  to  learn  much  more  than  is 
known  of  this  structure.  Some  diligent  Fellowes 
or  Layard  will  arrive,  stone  by  stone,  at  the  whole 
history,  by  that  exhaustive  British  sense  and  per- 
severance, so  whimsical  in  its  choice  of  objects, 
which  leaves  its  own  Stonehenge  or  Choir  Gaur  to 
the  rabbits,  whilst  it  opens  pyramids  and  uncovers 
Nineveh.  Stonehenge,  in  virtue  of  the  simplicity 
of  its  plan  and  its  good  preservation,  is  as  if  new 
and  recent ;  and,  a  thousand  years  hence,  men  will 
thank  this  age  for  the  accurate  history.  We  walked 
in  and  out  and  took  again  and  again  a  fresh  look 
at  the  uncanny  stones.  The  old  sphinx  put  our 
petty  differences  of  nationality  out  of  sight.  To 
these  conscious  stones  we  two  pilgrims  were  alike 


STONEHENGE.  265 

known  and  near.  We  could  equally  well  revere 
their  old  British  meaning.  My  philosopher  was 
subdued  and  gentle.  In  this  quiet  house  of  des- 
tiny he  happened  to  say,  "  I  plant  cypresses  wher- 
ever I  go,  and  if  I  am  in  search  of  pain,  I  cannot 
go  wrong."  The  spot,  the  gray  blocks  and  their 
rude  order,  which  refuses  to  be  disposed  of,  sug- 
gested to  him  the  flight  of  ages  and  the  succession 
of  religions.  The  old  times  of  England  impress 
Carlyle  much :  he  reads  little,  he  says,  in  these 
last  years,  but  "  Acta  Sanctorum  ;  "  the  fifty-three 
volumes  of  which  are  in  the  London  Library.  He 
finds  all  English  history  therein.  He  can  see,  as 
he  reads,  the  old  Saint  of  lona  sitting  there  and 
writing,  a  man  to  men.  The  Acta  Sanctorum 
show  plainly  that  the  men  of  those  times  believed 
in  God  and  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  as  their 
abbeys  and  cathedrals  testify :  now,  even  the  puri- 
tanism  is  all  gone.  London  is  pagan.  He  fancied 
that  greater  men  had  lived  in  England  than  any 
of  her  writers ;  and,  in  fact,  about  the  time  when 
those  writers  appeared,  the  last  of  these  were 
already  gone. 

We  left  the  mound  in  the  twilight,  with  the 
design  to  return  the  next  morning,  and  coming 
back  two  miles  to  our  inn  we  were  met  by  little 
showers,  and  late  as  it  was,  men  and  women  were 
out  attempting  to  protect  their  spread  windrows. 


266  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

The  grass  grows  rank  and  dark  in  the  showery 
England.  At  the  inn,  there  was  only  milk  for  one 
cup  of  tea.  When  we  called  for  more,  the  girl 
brought  us  three  drops.  My  friend  was  annoyed, 
who  stood  for  the  credit  of  an  English  inn,  and 
still  more  the  next  morning,  by  the  dog-cart,  sole 
procurable  vehicle,  in  which  we  were  to  be  sent 
to  Wilton.  I  engaged  the  local  antiquary,  Mr. 
Brown,  to  go  with  us  to  Stonehenge,  on  our  way, 
and  show  us  what  he  knew  of  the  "  astronomical " 
and  "  sacrificial  "  stones.  I  stood  on  the  last,  and 
he  pointed  to  the  upright,  or  rather,  inclined  stone, 
called  the  "astronomical,"  and  bade  me  notice  that 
its  top  ranged  with  the  sky-line.  "  Yes."  Very 
well.  Now,  at  the  summer  solstice,  the  sun  rises 
exactly  over  the  top  of  that  stone,  and,  at  the  Dru- 
idical  temple  at  Abury,  there  is  also  an  astronomi- 
cal stone,  in  the  same  relative  position. 

In  the  silence  of  tradition,  this  one  relation  to 
science  becomes  an  important  clew ;  but  we  were 
content  to  leave  the  problem  with  the  rocks.  Was 
this  the  "  Giants'  Dance,"  which  Merlin  brought 
from  Killaraus,  in  Ireland,  to  be  Uther  Pendragon's 
monument  to  the  British  nobles  whom  Hengist 
slaughtered  here,  as  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  relates  ? 
or  was  it  a  Roman  work,  as  Inigo  Jones  explained 
to  King  James ;  or  identical  in  design  and  style 
with  the  East  Indian  temples  of  the  sun,  as  Davies 


STONEHENGE.  267 

in  the  Celtic  Researches  maintains?  Of  all  the 
writers,  Stukeley  is  the  best.  The  heroic  anti- 
quary, charmed  with  the  geometric  perfections  of 
his  ruin,  connects  it  with  the  oldest  monuments 
and  religion  of  the  world,  and  with  the  courage  of 
his  tribe,  does  not  stick  to  say,  "the  Deity  who 
made  the  world  by  the  scheme  of  Stonehenge/' 
He  finds  that  the  cursus *  on  Salisbury  Plain 
stretches  across  the  downs  like  a  line  of  latitude 
upon  the  globe,  and  the  meridian  line  of  Stone- 
henge  passes  exactly  through  the  middle  of  this 
cursus.  But  here  is  the  high  point  of  the  theory : 
the  Druids  had  the  magnet ;  laid  their  courses  by 
it;  their  cardinal  points  in  Stonehenge,  Ambres- 
bury,  and  elsewhere,  which  vary  a  little  from  true 
east  and  west,  followed  the  variations  of  the  com- 
pass. The  Druids  were  Phoenicians.  The  name 
of  the  magnet  is  lapis  fferacleus,  and  Hercules 
was  the  god  of  the  Phoanicians.  Hercules,  in  the 
legend,  drew  his  bow  at  the  sun,  and  the  sun-god 
gave  him  a  golden  cup,  with  which  he  sailed  over 
1  Connected  with  Stonehenge  are  an  avenue  and  a  cursus. 
The  avenue  is  a  narrow  road  of  raised  earth,  extending  o&l 
yards  in  a  straight  line  from  the  grand  entrance,  then  divid- 
ing into  two  branches,  which  lead,  severally,  to  a  row  of 
barrows,  and  to  the  cursus,  —  an  artificially  formed  flat  tract 
of  ground.  This  is  half  a  mile  northeast  from  Stonehenge, 
bounded  by  banks  and  ditches,  3036  yards  long,  by  110 
broad. 


268  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  ocean.  What  was  this,  but  a  compass-box? 
This  cup  or  little  boat,  in  which  the  magnet  was 
made  to  float  on  water  and  so  show  the  north,  was 
probably  its  first  form,  before  it  was  suspended  on  a 
pin.  But  science  was  an  arcanum,  and,  as  Britain 
was  a  Phosnician  secret,  so  they  kept  their  compass 
a  secret,  and  it  was  lost  with  the  Tyrian  commerce. 
The  golden  fleece  again,  of  Jason,  was  the  com- 
pass,—  a  bit  of  loadstone,  easily  supposed  to  be 
the  only  one  in  the  world,  and  therefore  naturally 
awakening  the  cupidity  and  ambition  of  the  young 
heroes  of  a  maritime  nation  to  join  in  an  expedi- 
tion to  obtain  possession  of  this  wise  stone.  Hence 
the  fable  that  the  ship  Argo  was  loquacious  and 
oracular.  There  is  also  some  curious  coincidence 
in  the  names.  Apollodorus  makes  Magnes  the  son 
of  j^Eolus,  who  married  Nais.  On  hints  like  these, 
Stukeley  builds  again  the  grand  colonnade  into 
historic  harmony,  and  computing  backward  by  the 
known  variations  of  the  compass,  bravely  assigns 
the  year  406  before  Christ  for  the  date  of  the 
temple. 

For  the  difficulty  of  handling  and  carrying 
stones  of  this  size,  the  like  is  done  in  all  cities, 
every  day,  with  no  other  aid  than  horse-power.  I 
chanced  to  see,  a  year  ago,  men  at  work  on  the 
substructure  of  a  house  in  Bowdoin  Square,  in  Bos- 
ton, swinging  a  block  of  granite  of  the  size  of  the 


STONEHENGE.  269 

largest  of  the  Stonehenge  columns,  with  an  ordi- 
nary derrick.  The  men  were  common  masons,  with 
paddies  to  help,  nor  did  they  think  they  were  doing 
anything  remarkable.  I  suppose  there  were  as 
good  men  a  thousand  years  ago.  And  we  wonder 
how  Stonehenge  was  built  and  forgotten.  After 
spending  half  an  hour  on  the  spot,  we  set  forth 
in  our  dog-cart  over  the  downs  for  Wilton,  Carlyle 
not  suppressing  some  threats  and  evil  omens  on 
the  proprietors,  for  keeping  these  broad  plains  a 
wretched  sheep-walk  when  so  many  thousands  of 
English  men  were  hungry  and  wanted  labor.  But 
I  heard  afterwards  that  it  is  not  an  economy  to 
cultivate  this  land,  which  only  yields  one  crop  on 
being  broken  up,  and  is  then  spoiled. 

We  came  to  Wilton  and  to  Wilton  Hall, — the 
renowned  seat  of  the  Earls  of  Pembroke,  a  house 
known  to  Shakspeare  and  Massinger,  the  frequent 
home  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  where  he  wrote  the 
Arcadia;  where  he  conversed  with  Lord  Brooke, 
a  man  of  deep  thought,  and  a  poet,  who  caused  to 
be  engraved  on  his  tombstone,  "  Here  lies  Fulke 
Greville,  Lord  Brooke,  the  friend  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney."  It  is  now  the  property  of  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke,  and  the  residence  of  his  brother,  Sid- 
ney Herbert,  Esq.,  and  is  esteemed  a  noble  speci- 
men of  the  English  manor-hall.  My  friend  had 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Herbert  to  his  housekeeper,  and 


270  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

the  house  was  shown.  The  state  drawing-room  is 
a  double  cube,  30  feet  high,  by  30  feet  wide,  by 
60  feet  long :  the  adjoining  room  is  a  single  cube, 
of  30  feet  every  way.  Although  these  apartments 
and  the  long  library  were  full  of  good  family  por- 
traits, Vandykes  and  other ;  and  though  there  were 
some  good  pictures,  and  a  quadrangle  cloister  full 
of  antique  and  modern  statuary, — to  which  Car- 
lyle,  catalogue  in  hand,  did  all  too  much  justice, 
— yet  the  eye  was  still  drawn  to  the  windows,  to  a 
magnificent  lawn,  on  which  grew  the  finest  cedars 
in  England.  I  had  not  seen  more  charming 
grounds.  We  went  out,  and  walked  over  the 
estate.  We  crossed  a  bridge  built  by  Inigo  Jones, 
over  a  stream  of  which  the  gardener  did  not  know 
the  name  (  Qu.  Alph  ?)  ;  watched  the  deer  ;  climbed 
to  the  lonely  sculptured  summer-house,  on  a  hill 
backed  by  a  wood ;  came  down  into  the  Italian 
garden  and  into  a  French  pavilion  garnished  with 
French  busts ;  and  so  again  to  the  house,  where 
we  found  a  table  laid  for  us  with  bread,  meats, 
peaches,  grapes  and  wine. 

On  leaving  Wilton  House,  we  took  the  coach  for 
Salisbury.  The  Cathedral,  which  was  finished  six 
hundred  years  ago,  has  even  a  spruce  and  modern 
air,  and  its  spire  is  the  highest  in  England.  I 
know  not  why,  but  I  had  been  more  struck  with 
one  of  no  fame,  at  Coventry,  which  rises  three 


STONEHENGE.  271 

hundred  feet  from  the  ground,  with  the  lightness 
of  a  mullein  plant,  and  not  at  all  implicated  with 
the  church.  Salisbury  is  now  esteemed  the  culmi- 
nation of  the  Gothic  art  in  England,  as  the  but- 
tresses are  fully  unmasked  and  honestly  detailed 
from  the  sides  of  the  pile.  The  interior  of  the 
Cathedral  is  obstructed  by  the  organ  in  the  middle, 
acting  like  a  screen.  I  know  not  why  in  real  archi- 
tecture the  hunger  of  the  eye  for  length  of  line  is 
so  rarely  gratified.  The  rule  of  art  is  that  a  col- 
onnade is  more  beautiful  the  longer  it  is,  and  that 
ad  infinitum.  And  the  nave  of  a  church  is  seldom 
so  long  that  it  need  be  divided  by  a  screen. 

We  loitered  in  the  church,  outside  the  choir, 
whilst  service  was  said.  Whilst  we  listened  to  the 
organ,  my  friend  remarked,  The  music  is  good,  and 
yet  not  quite  religious,  but  somewhat  as  if  a  monk 
were  panting  to  some  fine  Queen  of  Heaven.  Car- 
lyle  was  unwilling,  and  we  did  not  ask  to  have 
the  choir  shown  us,  but  returned  to  our  inn,  after 
seeing  another  old  church  of  the  place.  We 
passed  in  the  train  Clarendon  Park,  but  could  see 
little  but  the  edge  of  a  wood,  though  Carlyle  had 
wished  to  pay  closer  attention  to  the  birthplace  of 
the  Decrees  of  Clarendon.  At  Bishopstoke  we 
stopped,  and  found  Mr.  H.,  who  received  us  in  his 
carriage,  and  took  us  to  his  house  at  Bishops  Wal- 
tham. 


272  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

On  Sunday  we  had  much  discourse,  on  a  very 
rainy  day.  My  friends  asked,  whether  there  were 
any  Americans  ?  —  any  with  an  American  idea,  — 
any  theory  of  the  right  future  of  that  country  ? 
Thus  challenged,  I  bethought  myself  neither  of  cau- 
cuses nor  congress,  neither  of  presidents  nor  of  cab- 
inet-ministers, nor  of  such  as  would  make  of  Amer- 
ica another  Europe.  I  thought  only  of  the  sim- 
plest and  purest  minds ;  I  said,  "  Certainly  yes ;  — 
but  those  who  hold  it  are  fanatics  of  a  dream  which 
I  should  hardly  care  to  relate  to  your  English  ears, 
to  which  it  might  be  only  ridiculous,  —  and  yet  it 
is  the  only  true."  So  I  opened  the  dogma  of  no- 
government  and  non-resistance,  and  anticipated  the 
objections  and  the  fun,  and  procured  a  kind  of 
hearing  for  it.  I  said,  it  is  true  that  I  have  never 
seen  in  any  country  a  man  of  sufficient  valor  to 
stand  for  this  truth,  and  yet  it  is  plain  to  me  that 
no  less  valor  than  this  can  command  my  respect. 
I  can  easily  see  the  bankruptcy  of  the  vulgar  mus- 
ket-worship, —  though  great  men  be  musket-wor- 
shippers ;  —  and  't  is  certain  as  God  liveth,  the  gun 
that  does  not  need  another  gun,  the  law  of  love 
and  justice  alone,  can  effect  a  clean  revolution.  I 
fancied  that  one  or  two  of  my  anecdotes  made 
some  impression  on  Carlyle,  and  I  insisted  that  the 
manifest  absurdity  of  the  view  to  English  feasibil- 
ity could  make  no  difference  to  a  gentleman ;  that 


STONEHENGE.  273 

as  to  our  secure  tenure  of  our  mutton-chop  and 
spinach  in  London  or  in  Boston,  the  soul  might 
quote  Talleyrand,  "Monsieur,  je  n'en  vois  pas  la 
necessite."  As  I  had  thus  taken  in  the  conversa- 
tion the  saint's  part,  when  dinner  was  announced, 
Carlyle  refused  to  go  out  before  me,  —  "  he  was  al- 
together too  wicked."  I  planted  my  back  against 
the  wall,  and  our  host  wittily  rescued  us  from  the 
dilemma,  by  saying  he  was  .the  wickedest  and 
would  walk  out  first,  then  Carlyle  followed,  and  I 
went  last. 

On  the  way  to  Winchester,  whither  our  host 
accompanied  us  in  the  afternoon,  my  friends  asked 
many  questions  respecting  American  landscape,  for- 
ests, houses,  —  my  house,  for  example.  It  is  not 
easy  to  answer  these  queries  well.  There,  I  thought, 
in  America,  lies  nature  sleeping,  overgrowing,  al- 
most conscious,  too  much  by  half  for  man  in  the 
picture,  and  so  giving  a  certain  tristesse,  like  the 
rank  vegetation  of  swamps  and  forests  seen  at 
night,  steeped  in  dews  and  rains,  which  it  loves ; 
and  on  it  man  seems  not  able  to  make  much  im- 
pression. There,  in  that  great  sloven  continent, 
in  high  Alleghany  pastures,  in  the  sea-wide  sky- 
skirted  prairie,  still  sleeps  and  murmurs  and  hides 
the  great  mother,  long  since  driven  away  from  the 
trim  hedge-rows  and  over-cultivated  garden  of  Eng- 
land. And,  in  England,  I  am  quite  too  sensible 


274  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

of  this.  Every  one  is  on  his  good  behavior  and 
must  be  dressed  for  dinner  at  six.  So  I  put  off 
my  friends  with  very  inadequate  details,  as  best  I 
could. 

Just  before  entering  Winchester  we  stopped  at 
the  Church  of  Saint  Cross,  and  after  looking 
through  the  quaint  antiquity,  we  demanded  a  piece 
of  bread  and  a  draught  of  beer,  which  the  founder, 
Henry  de  Blois,  in  1136,  commanded  should  be 
given  to  every  one  who  should  ask  it  at  the  gate. 
We  had  both,  from  the  old  couple  who  take  care 
of  the  church.  Some  twenty  people  every  day, 
they  said,  make  the  same  demand.  This  hospital- 
ity of  seven  hundred  years'  standing  did  not  hin- 
der Carlyle  from  pronouncing  a  malediction  on  the 
priest  who  receives  <£2,000  a  year,  that  were  meant 
for  the  poor,  and  spends  a  pittance  on  this  small- 
beer  and  crumbs. 

In  the  Cathedral  I  was  gratified,  at  least  by  the 
ample  dimensions.  The  length  of  line  exceeds  that 
of  any  other  English  church;  being  556  feet,  by 
250  in  breadth  of  transept.  I  think  I  prefer  this 
church  to  all  I  have  seen,  except  Westminster  and 
York.  Here  was  Canute  buried,  and  here  Alfred 
the  Great  was  crowned  and  buried,  and  here  the 
Saxon  kings ;  and,  later,  in  his  own  church,  Wil- 
liam of  Wykeham.  It  is  very  old :  part  of  the 
crypt  into  which  we  went  down  and  saw  the  Saxon 


STONEHENGE.  275 

and  Norman  arches  of  the  old  church  on  which 
the  present  stands,  was, built  fourteen  or  fifteen 
hundred  years  ago.  Sharon  Turner  says,  "  Alfred 
was  buried  at  Winchester,  in  the  Abbey  he  had 
founded  there,  but  his  remains  were  removed  by 
Henry  I.  to  the  new  Abbey  in  the  meadows  at 
Hyde,  on  the  northern  quarter  of  the  city,  and  laid 
under  the  high  altar.  The  building  was  destroyed 
at  the  Reformation,  and  what  is  left  of  Alfred's 
body  now  lies  covered  by  modern  buildings,  or  bur- 
ied in  the  ruins  of  the  old."  1  William  of  Wyke- 
ham's  shrine  tomb  was  unlocked  for  us,  and  Carlyle 
took  hold  of  the  recumbent  statue's  marble  hands 
and  patted  them  affectionately,  for  he  rightly  val- 
ues the  brave  man  who  built  Windsor  and  this  Ca- 
thedral and  the  School  here  and  New  College  at 
Oxford.  But  it  was  growing  late  in  the  afternoon. 
Slowly  we  left  the  old  house,  and  parting  with  our 
host,  we  took  the  train  for  London. 

1  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  I.  599. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

PERSONAL. 

IN  these  comments  011  an  old  journey,  now  re- 
vised after  seven  busy  years  have  much  changed 
men  and  things  in  England,  I  have  abstained  from 
reference  to  persons,  except  in  the  last  chapter 
and  in  one  or  two  cases  where  the  fame  of  the 
parties  seemed  to  have  given  the  public  a  property 
in  all  that  concerned  them.  I  must  further  allow 
myself  a  few  notices,  if  only  as  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  debts  that  cannot  be  paid.  My  journeys 
were  cheered  by  so  much  kindness  from  new 
friends,  that  my  impression  of  the  island  is  bright 
with  agreeable  memories  both  of  public  societies 
and  of  households :  and,  what  is  nowhere  better 
found  than  in  England,  a  cultivated  person  fitly 
surrounded  by  a  happy  home,  "with  honor,  love, 
obedience,  troops  of  friends,"  is  of  all  institutions 
the  best.  At  the  landing  in  Liverpool  I  found 
my  Manchester  correspondent  awaiting  me,  a  gen- 
tleman whose  kind  reception  was  followed  by  a 
train  of  friendly  and  effective  attentions  which 
never  rested  whilst  I  remained  in  the  country.  A 


PERSONAL.  277 

man  of  sense  and  of  letters,  the  editor  of  a  power- 
ful local  journal,  he  added  to  solid  virtues  an  infi- 
nite sweetness  and  bonhommie.  There  seemed  a 
pool  of  honey  about  his  heart  which  lubricated 
all  his  speech  and  action  with  fine  jets  of  mead. 
An  equal  good  fortune  attended  many  later  acci- 
dents of  my  journey,  until  the  sincerity  of  English 
kindness  ceased  to  surprise.  My  visit  fell  in  the 
fortunate  days  when  Mr.  Bancroft  was  the  Ameri- 
can Minister  in  London,  and  at  his  house,  or 
through  his  good  offices,  I  had  easy  access  to  ex- 
cellent persons  and  to  privileged  places.  At  the 
house  of  Mr.  Carlyle,  I  met  persons  eminent  in 
society  and  in  letters.  The  privileges  of  the 
Athenaeum  and  of  the  Reform  Clubs  were  hospi- 
tably opened  to  me,  and  I  found  much  advantage 
in  the  circles  of  the  "  Geologic,"  the  "  Antiqua- 
rian "  and  the  "  Royal "  Societies.  Every  day  in 
London  gave  me  new  opportunities  of  meeting 
men  and  women  who  give  splendor  to  society.  I 
saw  Rogers,  Hallam,  Macaulay,  Milnes,  Milman, 
Barry  Cornwall,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Tennyson, 
Leigh  Hunt,  D'Israeli,  Helps,  Wilkinson,  Bailey, 
Kenyon  and  Forster :  the  younger  poets,  Clough, 
Arnold  and  Patmore ;  and  among  the  men  of 
science,  Robert  Brown,  Owen,  Sedgwick,  Faraday, 
Bucldand,  Lyell,  De  la  Beche,  Hooker,  Carpenter, 
Babbage  and  Edward  Forbes.  It  was  my  privi- 


278  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

lege  also  to  converse  with  Miss  Baillie,  with  Lady 
Morgan,  with  Mrs.  Jameson  and  Mrs.  Somerville. 
A  finer  hospitality  made  many  private  houses  not 
less  known  and  dear.  It  is  not  in  distinguished 
circles  that  wisdom  and  elevated  characters  are 
usually  found,  or,  if  found,  they  are  not  confined 
thereto  ;  and  my  recollections  of  the  best  hours  go 
back  to  private  conversations  in  different  parts  of 
the  kingdom,  with  persons  little  known.  Nor  am 
I  insensible  to  the  courtesy  which  frankly  opened 
to  me  some  noble  mansions,  if  I  do  not  adorn  my 
page  with  their  names.  Among  the  privileges  of 
London,  I  recall  with  pleasure  two  or  three  signal 
days,  one  at  Kew,  where  Sir  William  Hooker 
showed  me  all  the  riches  of  the  vast  botanic  gar- 
den ;  one  at  the  Museum,  where  Sir  Charles  Fel- 
lowes  explained  in  detail  the  history  of  his  Ionic 
trophy-monument ;  and  still  another,  on  which  Mr. 
Owen  accompanied  my  countryman  Mr.  H.  and 
myself  through  the  Hunterian  Museum. 

The  like  frank  hospitality,  bent  on  real  service, 
I  found  among  the  great  and  the  humble,  wherever 
I  went ;  in  Birmingham,  in  Oxford,  in  Leicester, 
in  Nottingham,  in  Sheffield,  in  Manchester,  in 
Liverpool.  At  Edinburgh,  through  the  kindness 
of  Dr.  Samuel  Brown,  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
De  Quincey,  of  Lord  Jeffrey,  of  Wilson,  of  Mrs. 
Crowe,  of  the  Messrs.  Chambers,  and  of  a  man  of 


PERSONAL.  279 

high  character  and  genius,  the  short-lived  painter, 
David  Scott. 

At  Ambleside  in  March,  1848,  I  was  for  a 
couple  of  days  the  guest  of  Miss  Martineau,  then 
newly  returned  from  her  Egyptian  tour.  On  Sun- 
day afternoon  I  accompanied  her  to  Rydal  Mount. 
And  as  I  have  recorded  a  visit  to  Wordsworth, 
many  years  before,  I  must  not  forget  this  second 
interview.  We  found  Mr.  Wordsworth  asleep  on 
the  sofa.  He  was  at  first  silent  and  indisposed,  as 
an  old  man  suddenly  waked  before  he  had  ended 
his  nap ;  but  soon  became  full  of  talk  on  the  French 
news.  He  was  nationally  bitter  on  the  French ; 
bitter  on  Scotchmen,  too.  No  Scotchman,  he  said, 
can  write  English.  He  detailed  the  two  models,  on 
one  or  the  other  of  which  all  the  sentences  of  the 
historian  Robertson  are  framed.  Nor  could  Jef- 
frey, nor  the  Edinburgh  Reviewers  write  English, 
nor  can  *  *  *,  who  is  a  pest  to  the  English  tongue. 
Incidentally  he  added,  Gibbon  cannot  write  Eng- 
lish. The  Edinburgh  Review  wrote  what  would 
tell  and  what  would  sell.  It  had  however  changed 
the  tone  of  its  literary  criticism  from  the  time  when 
a  certain  letter  was  written  to  the  editor  by  Cole- 
ridge. Mrs.  W.  had  the  Editor's  answer  in  her 
possession.  Tennyson  he  thinks  a  right  poetic  gen- 
ius, though  with  some  affectation.  He  had  thought 
an  elder  brother  of  Tennyson  at  first  the  better 


280  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

poet,  but  must  now  reckon  Alfred  the  true  one.  .  .  . 
In  speaking  of  I  know  not  what  style,  he  said,  "  to 
be  sure,  it  was  the  manner,  but  then  you  know  the 
matter  always  comes  out  of  the  manner."  .  .  .  He 
thought  Rio  Janeiro  the  best  place  in  the  world  for 
a  great  capital  city.  .  .  .  We  talked  of  English 
national  character.  I  told  him  it  was  not  credit- 
able that  no  one  in  all  the  country  knew  anything 
of  Thomas  Taylor,  the  Platonist,  whilst  in  every 
American  library  his  translations  are  found.  I 
said,  if  Plato's  Republic  were  published  in  England 
as  a  new  book  to-day,  do  you  think  it  would  find 
any  readers  ?  —  he  confessed,  it  would  not :  "  And 
yet,"  he  added  after  a  pause,  with  that  compla- 
cency which  never  deserts  a  true-born  Englishman, 
"  and  yet  we  have  embodied  it  all." 

His  opinions  of  French,  English,  Irish  and 
Scotch,  seemed  rashly  formulized  from  little  anec- 
dotes of  what  had  befallen  himself  and  members 
of  his  family,  in  a  diligence  or  stage-coach.  His 
face  sometimes  lighted  up,  but  his  conversation 
was  not  marked  by  special  force  or  elevation.  Yet 
perhaps  it  is  a  high  compliment  to  the  cultivation 
of  the  English  generally,  when  we  find  such  a  man 
not  distinguished.  He  had  a  healthy  look,  with  a 
weather-beaten  face,  his  face  corrugated,  especially 
the  large  nose. 

Miss   Martineau,  who   lived  near  him,  praised 


PERSONAL.  281 

him  to  me  not  for  his  poetry,  but  for  thrift  and 
economy ;  for  having  afforded  to  his  country-neigh- 
bors an  example  of  a  modest  household  where  com- 
fort and  culture  were  secured  without  any  display. 
She  said  that  in  his  early  housekeeping  at  the  cot- 
tage where  he  first  lived,  he  was  accustomed  to 
offer  his  friends  bread  and  plainest  fare  ;  if  they 
wanted  anything  more,  they  must  pay  him  for  their 
board.  It  was  the  rule  of  the  house.  I  replied 
that  it  evinced  English  pluck  more  than  any  anec- 
dote I  knew.  A  gentleman  in  the  neighborhood 
told  the  story  of  Walter  Scott's  staying  once  for 
a  week  with  Wordsworth,  and  slipping  out  every 
day,  under  pretence  of  a  walk,  to  the  Swan  Inn 
for  a  cold  cut  and  porter  ;  and  one  day  passing 
with  Wordsworth  the  inn,  he  was  betrayed  by  the 
landlord's  asking  him  if  he  had  come  for  his  por- 
ter. Of  course  this  trait  would  have  another  look 
in  London,  and  there  you  will  hear  from  different 
literary  men  that  Wordsworth  had  no  personal 
friend,  that  he  was  not  amiable,  that  he  was  par- 
simonious, &c.  Landor,  always  generous,  says  that 
he  never  praised  any  body.  A  gentleman  in  Lon- 
don showed  me  a  watch  that  once  belonged  to  Mil- 
ton, whose  initials  are  engraved  on  its  face.  He 
said  he  once  showed  this  to  Wordsworth,  who  took 
it  in  one  hand,  then  drew  out  his  own  watch  and 
held  it  up  with  the  other,  before  the  company,  but 


282  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

no  one  making  the  expected  remark,  he  put  back 
his  own  in  silence.  I  do  not  attach  much  impor- 
tance to  the  disparagement  of  Wordsworth  among 
London  scholars.  Who  reads  him  well  will  know 
that  in  following  the  strong  bent  of  his  genius,  he 
was  careless  of  the  many,  careless  also  of  the  few, 
self-assured  that  he  should  "create  the  taste  by 
which  he  is  to  be  enjoyed."  He  lived  long  enough 
to  witness  the  revolution  he  had  wrought,  and  "  to 
see  what  he  foresaw."  There  are  torpid  places  in 
his  mind,  there  is  something  hard  and  sterile  in  his 
poetry,  want  of  grace  and  variety,  want  of  due  cath- 
olicity and  cosmopolitan  scope:  he  had  conformi- 
ties to  English  politics  and  traditions  ;  he  had  ego- 
tistic puerilities  in  the  choice  and  treatment  of  his 
subjects ;  but  let  us  say  of  him  that,  alone  in  his 
time,  he  treated  the  human  mind  well,  and  with  an 
absolute  trust.  His  adherence  to  his  poetic  creed 
rested  on  real  inspirations.  The  Ode  on  Immortal- 
ity is  the  high-water-mark  which  the  intellect  has 
reached  in  this  age.  New  means  were  employed, 
and  new  realms  added  to  the  empire  of  the  muse, 
by  his  courage. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

RESULT. 

ENGLAND  is  the  best  of  actual  nations.  It  is  no 
ideal  framework,  it  is  an  old  pile  built  in  different 
ages,  with  repairs,  additions  and  makeshifts ;  but 
you  see  the  poor  best  you  have  got.  London  is 
the  epitome  of  our  times,  and  the  Rome  of  to-day. 
Broad-fronted,  broad-bottomed  Teutons,  they  stand 
in  solid  phalanx  foursquare  to  the  points  of  com- 
pass ;  they  constitute  the  modern  world,  they  have 
earned  their  vantage  ground  and  held  it  through 
ages  of  adverse  possession.  They  are  well  marked 
and  differing  from  other  leading  races.  England 
is  tender-hearted.  Rome  was  not.  England  is 
not  so  public  in  its  bias ;  private  life  is  its  place  of 
honor.  Truth  in  private  life,  untruth  in  public, 
ma,rks  these  home-loving  men.  Their  political 
conduct  is  not  decided  by  general  views,  but  by 
internal  intrigues  and  personal  and  family  interest. 
They  cannot  readily  see  beyond  England.  The 
history  of  Rome  and  Greece,  when  written  by  their 
scholars,  degenerates  into  English  party  pamphlets. 
They  cannot  see  beyond  England,  nor  in  England 


284  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

can  they  transcend  the  interests  of  the  governing 
classes.  "  English  principles  "  mean  a  primary  re- 
gard to  the  interests  of  property.  England,  Scot- 
land and  Ireland  combine  to  check  the  colonies. 
England  and  Scotland  combine  to  check  Irish 
manufactures  and  trade.  England  rallies  at  home 
to  check  Scotland.  In  England,  the  strong  classes 
check  the  weaker.  In  the  home  population  of  near 
thirty  millions,  there  are  but  one  million  voters. 
The  Church  punishes  dissent,  punishes  education. 
Down  to  a  late  day,  marriages  performed  by  dis- 
senters were  illegal.  A  bitter  class-legislation  gives 
power  to  those  who  are  rich  enough  to  buy  a  law. 
The  game-laws  are  a  proverb  of  oppression.  Pau- 
perism incrusts  and  clogs  the  state,  and  in  hard 
times  becomes  hideous.  In  bad  seasons,  the  por- 
ridge was  diluted.  Multitudes  lived  miserably  by 
shell-fish  and  sea-ware.  In  cities,  the  children  are 
trained  to  beg,  until  they  shall  be  old  enough  to 
rob.  Men  and  women  were  convicted  of  poisoning 
scores  of  children  for  burial-fees.  In  Irish  districts, 
men  deteriorated  in  size  and  shape,  the  nose  sunk, 
the  gums  were  exposed,  with  diminished  brain  and 
brutal  form.  During  the  Australian  emigration, 
multitudes  were  rejected  by  the  commissioners  as 
being  too  emaciated  for  useful  colonists.  During 
the  Russian  war,  few  of  those  that  offered  as 
recruits  were  found  up  to  the  medical  standard, 
though  it  had  been  reduced. 


RESULT.  285 

The  foreign  policy  of  England,  though  ambitious 
and  lavish  of  money,  has  not  often  been  generous 
or  just.  It  has  a  principal  regard  to  the  interest 
of  trade,  checked  however  by  the  aristocratic  bias 
of  the  ambassador,  which  usually  puts  him  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  continental  Courts.  It  sanctioned 
the  partition  of  Poland,  it  betrayed  Genoa,  Sicily, 
Parga,  Greece,  Turkey,  Rome  and  Hungary. 

Some  public  regards  they  have.  They  have 
abolished  slavery  in  the  West  Indies  and  put  an 
end  to  human  sacrifices  in  the  East.  At  home 
they  have  a  certain  statute  hospitality.  England 
keeps  open  doors,  as  a  trading  country  must,  to  all 
nations.  It  is  one  of  their  fixed  ideas,  and  wrath- 
f ully  supported  by  their  laws  in  unbroken  sequence 
for  a  thousand  years.  In  Magnet  Charta  it  was 
ordained  that  all  "  merchants  shall  have  safe  and 
secure  conduct  to  go  out  and  come  into  England, 
and  to  stay  there,  and  to  pass  as  well  by  land  as 
by  water,  to  buy  and  sell  by  the  ancient  allowed 
customs,  without  any  evil  toll,  except  in  time  of 
war,  or  when  they  shall  be  of  any  nation  at  war 
with  us.  "  It  is  a  statute  and  obliged  hospitality 
and  peremptorily  maintained.  But  this  shop-rule 
had  one  magnificent  effect.  It  extends  its  cold 
unalterable  courtesy  to  political  exiles  of  every 
opinion,  and  is  a  fact  which  might  give  additional 
light  to  that  portion  of  the  planet  seen  from  the 


286  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

farthest  star.  But  this  perfunctory  hospitality  puts 
no  sweetness  into  their  unaccommodating  manners, 
no  check  on  that  puissant  nationality  which  makes 
their  existence  incompatible  with  all  that  is  not 
English. 

What  we  must  say  about  a  nation  is  a  superfi- 
cial dealing  with  symptoms.  We  cannot  go  deep 
enough  into  the  biography  of  the  spirit  who  never 
throws  himself  entire  into  one  hero,  but  delegates 
his  energy  in  parts  or  spasms  to  vicious  and  defec- 
tive individuals.  But  the  wealth  of  the  source  is 
seen  in  the  plenitude  of  English  nature.  What  va- 
riety of  power  and  talent ;  what  facility  and  plen- 
teousness  of  knighthood,  lordship,  ladyship,  royalty, 
loyalty ;  what  a  proud  chivalry  is  indicated  in 
"  Collins's  Peerage,"  through  eight  hundred  years ! 
What  dignity  resting  on  what  reality  and  stout- 
ness !  What  courage  in  war,  what  sinew  in  labor, 
what  cunning  workmen,  what  inventors  and  en- 
gineers, what  seamen  and  pilots,  what  clerks  and 
scholars !  No  one  man  and  no  few  men  can  repre- 
sent them.  It  is  a  people  of  myriad  personalities. 
Their  many-headedness  is  owing  to  the  advanta- 
geous position  of  the  middle  class,  who  are  always 
the  source  of  letters  and  science.  Hence  the  vast 
plenty  of  their  aesthetic  production.  As  they  are 
many-headed,  so  they  are  many-nationed :  their  col- 
onization annexes  archipelagoes  and  continents,  and 


RESULT.  287 

their  speech  seems  destined  to  be  the  universal  lan- 
guage of  men.  I  have  noted  the  reserve  of  power  in 
the  English  temperament.  In  the  island,  they  never 
let  out  all  the  length  of  all  the  reins,  there  is  no 
Berserker  rage,  no  abandonment  or  ecstasy  of  will 
or  intellect,  like  that  of  the  Arabs  in  the  time  of 
Mahomet,  or  like  that  which  intoxicated  France  in 
1789.  But  who  would  see  the  uncoiling  of  that 
tremendous  spring,  the  explosion  of  their  well-hus- 
banded forces,  must  follow  the  swarms  which  pour- 
ing now  for  two  hundred  years  from  the  British  is- 
lands, have  sailed  and  rode  and  traded  and  planted 
through  all  climates,  mainly  following  the  belt  of 
empire,  the  temperate  zones,  carrying  the  Saxon 
seed,  with  its  instinct  for  liberty  and  law,  for  arts 
and  for  thought,  —  acquiring  under  some  skies  a 
more  electric  energy  than  the  native  air  allows,  — 
to  the  conquest  of  the  globe.  Their  colonial  pol- 
icy, obeying  the  necessities  of  a  vast  empire,  has 
become  liberal.  Canada  and  Australia  have  been 
contented  with  substantial  independence.  They 
are  expiating  the  wrongs  of  India  by  benefits; 
first,  in  works  for  the  irrigation  of  the  peninsula, 
and  roads,  and  telegraphs ;  and  secondly,  in  the 
instruction  of  the  people,  to  qualify  them  for  self- 
government,  when  the  British  power  shall  be  finally 
called  home. 

Their  mind  is  in  a  state  of  arrested  development, 


288  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

—  a  divine  cripple  like  Vulcan;    a  blind  savant 
like  Huber  and  Sanderson.     They  do  not  occupy 
themselves  on  matters  of  general  and  lasting  im- 
port, but  on  a  corporeal  civilization,  on  goods  that 
perish  in  the  using.     But  they  read  with  good  in- 
tent, and  what   they  learn   they  incarnate.     The 
English  mind  turns  every  abstraction  it  can  receive 
into  a  portable  utensil,  or  a  working  institution. 
Such  is  their  tenacity  and  such  their  practical  turn, 
that  they  hold  all  they  gain.     Hence  we  say  that 
only  the  English  race  can  be  trusted  with  freedom, 

—  freedom  which  is  double-edged  and  dangerous 
to  any  but  the  wise  and  robust.     The  English  des- 
ignate the  kingdoms  emulous  of  free  institutions, 
as  the  sentimental  nations.     Their  culture  is  not 
an  outside  varnish,  but  is  thorough  and  secular  in 
families  and  the  race.     They  are  oppressive  with 
their  temperament,  and  all  the  more  that  they  are 
refined.     I  have  sometimes  seen  them  walk  with 
my  countrymen  when  I  was  forced  to  allow  them 
every  advantage,  and  their  companions  seemed  bags 
of  bones. 

There  is  cramp  limitation  in  their  habit  of 
thought,  sleepy  routine,  and  a  tortoise's  instinct 
to  hold  hard  to  the  ground  with  his  claws,  lest  he 
should  be  thrown  on  his  back.  There  is  a  drag  of 
inertia  which  resists  reform  in  every  shape  ;  —  law- 
reform,  army-reform,  extension  of  suffrage,  Jewish 


RESULT.  289 

franchise,  Catholic  emancipation,  —  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  of  impressment,  penal  code  and  entails. 
They  praise  this  drag,  under  the  formula  that  it 
is  the  excellence  of  the  British  constitution  that  no 
law  can  anticipate  the  public  opinion.  These  poor 
tortoises  must  hold  hard,  for  they  feel  no  wings 
sprouting  at  their  shoulders.  Yet  somewhat  divine 
warms  at  their  heart  and  waits  a  happier  hour.  It 
hides  in  their  sturdy  will.  "  Will,"  said  the  old 
philosophy,  "  is  the  measure  of  power,"  and  per- 
sonality is  the  token  of  this  race.  Quid  vult  valde 
vult.  What  they  do  they  do  with  a  will.  You 
cannot  account  for  their  success  by  their  Christian- 
ity, commerce,  charter,  common  law,  Parliament, 
or  letters,  but  by  the  contumacious  sharptongued 
energy  of  English  naturel,  with  a  poise  impossible 
to  disturb,  which  makes  all  these  its  instruments. 
They  are  slow  and  reticent,  and  are  like  a  dull  good 
horse  which  lets  every  nag  pass  him,  but  with  whip 
and  spur  will  run  down  every  racer  in  the  field. 
They  are  right  in  their  feeling,  though  wrong  hi 
their  speculation. 

The  feudal  system  survives  in  the  steep  in- 
equality of  property  and  privilege,  in  the  limited 
franchise,  in  the  social  barriers  which  confine  pa- 
tronage and  promotion  to  a  caste,  and  still  more  in 
the  submissive  ideas  pervading  these  people.  The 
fagging  of  the  schools  is  repeated  in  the  social 
/  VOL.  v.  19 


290  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

classes.  An  Englishman  shows  no  mercy  to  those 
below  him  in  the  social  scale,  as  he  looks  for  none 
from  those  above  him ;  any  forbearance  from  his 
superiors  surprises  him,  and  they  suffer  in  his  good 
opinion.  But  the  feudal  system  can  be  seen  with 
less  pain  on  large  historical  grounds.  It  was 
pleaded  in  mitigation  of  the  rotten  borough,  that 
it  worked  well,  that  substantial  justice  was  done. 
Fox,  Burke,  Pitt,  Erskine,  Wilberforce,  Sheridan, 
Romilly,  or  whatever  national  man,  were  by  this 
means  sent  to  Parliament,  when  their  return  by 
large  constituencies  would  have  been  doubtful.  So 
now  we  say  that  the  right  measures  of  England  are 
the  men  it  bred ;  that  it  has  yielded  more  able  men 
in  five  hundred  years  than  any  other  nation ;  and, 
though  we  must  not  play  Providence  and  balance 
the  chances  of  producing  ten  great  men  against  the 
comfort  of  ten  thousand  mean  men,  yet  retrospec- 
tively, we  may  strike  the  balance  and  prefer  one 
Alfred,  one  Shakspeare,  one  Milton,  one  Sidney, 
one  Raleigh,  one  Wellington,  to  a  million  foolish 
democrats. 

The  American  system  is  more  democratic,  more 
humane;  yet  the  American  people  do  not  yield 
better  or  more  able  men,  or  more  inventions  or 
books  or  benefits  than  the  English.  Congress  is 
not  wiser  or  better  than  Parliament.  France  has 
abolished  its  suffocating  old  regime,  but  is  not  re- 
cently marked  by  any  more  wisdom  or  virtue. 


. 

RESULT.  291 

The  power  of  performance  has  not  been  ex- 
ceeded, —  the  creation  of  value.  The  English 
have  given  importance  to  individuals,  a  principal 
end  and  fruit  of  every  society.  Every  man  is 
allowed  and  encouraged  to  be  what  he  is,  and  is 
guarded  in  the  indulgence  of  his  whim.  "  Magna 
Charta,"  said  Rushworth,  "is  such  a  fellow  that  he 
will  have  no  sovereign."  By  this  general  activity 
and  by  this  sacredness  of  individuals,  they  have  in 
seven  hundred  years  evolved  the  principles  of  free- 
dom. It  is  the  land  of  patriots,  martyrs,  sages  and 
bards,  and  if  the  ocean  out  of  which  it  emerged 
should  wash  it  away,  it  will  be  remembered  as  an 
island  famous  for  immortal  laws,  for  the  announce- 
ments of  original  right  which  make  the  stone  tables 
of  liberty. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

SPEECH  AT  MANCHESTER. 

A  FEW  days  after  my  arrival  at  Manchester,  in 
November,  1847,  the  Manchester  Athenaeum  gave 
its  annual  Banquet  in  the  Free-Trade  Hall.  With 
other  guests,  I  was  invited  to  be  present  and  to 
address  the  company.  In  looking  over  recently  a 
newspaper-report  of  my  remarks,  I  incline  to  re- 
print it,  as  fitly  expressing  the  feeling  with  which 
I  entered  England,  and  which  agrees  well  enough 
with  the  more  deliberate  results  of  better  acquaint- 
ance recorded  in  the  foregoing  pages.  Sir  Archi- 
bald Alison,  the  historian,  presided,  and  opened  the 
meeting  with  a  speech.  He  was  followed  by  Mr. 
Cobden,  Lord  Brackley  and  others,  among  whom 
was  Mr.  Cruikshank,  one  of  the  contributors  to 
"Punch."  Mr.  Dickens's  letter  of  apology  for 
his  absence  was  read.  Mr.  Jerrold,  who  had  been 
announced,  did  not  appear.  On  being  introduced 
to  the  meeting  I  said : — 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen:  It  is  pleasant 
to  me  to  meet  this  great  and  brilliant  company, 
and  doubly  pleasant  to  see  the  faces  of  so  many 


SPEECH  AT  MANCHESTER.  293 

distinguished  persons  on  this  platform.  But  I 
have  known  all  these  persons  already.  When  I 
was  at  home,  they  were  as  near  to  me  as  they  are 
to  you.  The  arguments  of  the  League  and  its 
leader  are  known  to  all  the  friends  of  free  trade. 
The  gayeties  and  genius,  the  political,  the  social, 
the  parietal  wit  of  "  Punch "  go  duly  every  fort- 
night to  every  boy  and  girl  in  Boston  and  New 
York.  Sir,  when  I  came  to  sea,  I  found  the  "  His- 
tory of  Europe " l  on  the  ship's  cabin  table,  the 
property  of  the  captain ;  —  a  sort  of  programme  or 
play-bill  to  tell  the  seafaring  New  Englander  what 
he  shall  find  on  his  landing  here.  And  as  for 
Dombey,  sir,  there  is  no  land  where  paper  exists  to 
print  on,  where  it  is  not  found ;  no  man  who  can 
read,  that  does  not  read  it,  and,  if  he  cannot,  he 
finds  some  charitable  pair  of  eyes  that  can,  and 
hears  it. 

But  these  things  are  not  for  me  to  say;  these 
compliments,  though  true,  would  better  come  from 
one  who  felt  and  understood  these  merits  more.  I 
am  not  here  to  exchange  civilities  with  you,  but 
rather  to  speak  of  that  which  I  am  sure  interests 
these  gentlemen  more  than  their  own  praises ;  of 
that  which  is  good  in  holidays  and  working-days, 
the  same  in  one  century  and  in  another  century. 
That  which  lures  a  solitary  American  in  the  woods 

1  By  Sir  A,  Alison. 


294  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

with  the  wish  to  see  England,  is  the  moral  pecu- 
liarity of  the  Saxon  race,  —  its  commanding  sense 
of  right  and  wrong,  the  love  and  devotion  to  that, 

—  this  is  the  imperial  trait,  which  arms  them  with 
the  sceptre  of  the  globe.     It  is  this  which  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  that  aristocratic  character,  which 
certainly  wanders  into  strange  vagaries,  so  that  its 
origin  is  often  lost  sight  of,  but  which,  if  it  should 
lose  this,  would  find  itself  paralyzed ;  and  in  trade 
and   in  the   mechanic's   shop,  gives   that   honesty 
in   performance,    that    thoroughness   and    solidity 
of  work  which  is  a  national   characteristic.     This 
conscience  is  one  element,  and  the  other  is  that 
loyal  adhesion,  that  habit  of  friendship,  that  hom- 
age of  man  to  man,  running  through  all  classes, 

—  the  electing  of  worthy  persons  to  a  certain  fra- 
ternity, to  acts  of  kindness  and  warm  and  staunch 
support,  from  year  to  year,  from  youth  to  age,  — 
which  is  alike  lovely  and  honorable  to  those  who 
render  and  those  who  receive  it ;  which  stands  in 
strong  contrast  with  the  superficial   attachments  of 
other  races,  their  excessive  courtesy  and  short-lived 
connection. 

You  will  think  me  very  pedantic,  gentlemen,  but 
holiday  though  it  be,  I  have  not  the  smallest  inter- 
est in  any  holiday  except  as  it  celebrates  real  and 
not  pretended  joys ;  and  I  think  it  just,  in  this 
time  of  gloom  and  commercial  disaster,  of  affliction 


SPEECH  AT  MANCHESTER.  295 

and  beggary  in  these  districts,  that,  on  these  very 
accounts  I  speak  of,  you  should  not  fail  to  keep 
your  literary  anniversary.  I  seem  to  hear  you  say, 
that  for  all  that  is  come  and  gone  yet,  we  will  not 
reduce  by  one  chaplet  or  one  oak-leaf  the  braveries 
of  our  annual  feast.  For  I  must  tell  you,  I  was 
given  to  understand  in  my  childhood  that  the  Brit- 
ish island  from  which  my  forefathers  came  was  no 
lotus-garden,  no  paradise  of  serene  sky  and  roses 
and  music  and  merriment  all  the  year  round,  no, 
but  a  cold,  foggy,  mournful  country,  where  nothing 
grew  well  in  the  open  air  but  robust  men  and  vir- 
tuous women,  and  these  of  a  wonderful  fibre  and 
endurance ;  that  their  best  parts  were  slowly  re- 
vealed ;  their  virtues  did  not  come  out  until  they 
quarrelled ;  they  did  not  strike  twelve  the  first 
time ;  good  lovers,  good  haters,  and  you  could 
know  little  about  them  till  you  had  seen  them  long, 
and  little  good  of  them  till  you  had  seen  them  in 
action ;  that  in  prosperity  they  were  moody  and 
dumpish,  but  in  adversity  they  were  grand.  Is  it 
not  true,  sir,  that  the  wise  ancients  did  not  praise 
the  ship  parting  with  flying  colors  from  the  port, 
but  only  that  brave  sailer  which  came  back  with 
torn  sheets  and  battered  sides,  stript  of  her  ban- 
ners, but  having  ridden  out  the  storm  ?  And  so, 
gentlemen,  I  feel  in  regard  to  this  aged  England, 
with  the  possessions,  honors  and  trophies,  and 


296  ENGLISH  TRAITS. 

also  with  the  infirmities  of  a  thousand  years  gath- 
ering around  her,  irretrievably  committed  as  she 
now  is  to  many  old  customs  which  cannot  be  sud- 
denly changed  ;  pressed  upon  by  the  transitions  of 
trade  and  new  and  all  incalculable  modes,  fabrics, 
arts,  machines  and  competing  populations.  I  see 
her  not  dispirited,  not  weak,  but  well  remembering 
that  she  has  seen  dark  days  before  ;  —  indeed  with 
a  kind  of  instinct  that  she  sees  a  little  better  in  a 
cloudy  day,  and  that  in  storm  of  battle  and  calam- 
ity she  has  a  secret  vigor  and  a  pulse  like  a  cannon. 
I  see  her  in  her  old  age,  not  decrepit,  but  young 
and  still  daring  to  believe  in  her  power  of  endur- 
ance and  expansion.  Seeing  this,  I  say,  All  hail ! 
mother  of  nations,  mother  of  heroes,  with  strength 
still  equal  to  the  time  ;  still  wise  to  entertain  and 
swift  to  execute  the  policy  which  the  mind  and 
heart  of  mankind  requires  in  the  present  hour,  and 
thus  only  hospitable  to  the  foreigner  and  truly  a 
home  to  the  thoughtful  and  generous  who  are  born 
in  the  soil.  So  be  it !  so  let  it  be  !  If  it  be  not  so, 
if  the  courage  of  England  goes  with  the  chances  of 
a  commercial  crisis,  I  will  go  back  to  the  capes  of 
Massachusetts  and  my  own  Indian  stream,  and  say 
to  my  countrymen,  the  old  race  are  all  gone,  and 
the  elasticity  and  hope  of  mankind  must  hence- 
forth remain  on  the  Alleghany  ranges,  or  no- 
where. 


